


From family to familia

by NinjaHero2002



Category: Blue Beetle (Comics), Impulse (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bluepulse, M/M, Time Skips, Time Travel, bluepulse family, older bart and well everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 46,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinjaHero2002/pseuds/NinjaHero2002
Summary: In a future that no one will know, Bart Allen lost everything, his brother, his mentor, his cousin, his mother, they may not even have a chance to exist now, so he swore to take that horrible future and their existance to the grave, he tries to ignore the fact that he misses them, until some team members find some personal stuff in the time machine, and a mission brought back old memories.





	1. Chapter 1

-Mount Justice

The old future:

 

In the top of mount justice, a blur of gray and white came in sight, once it reached the top it stopped, it became a boy, with brownish read hair and yellow eyes, he had pale skin, and was really skinny.

"Thad, hurry up!" The boy yelped from the top of the mountain. In less than one second another blur came behind to him, and covered his mouth with his hand.

 _"Allen! Quiet before the Reach find us!"_ The other boy hissed.

“It´s Bart!” Bart said quietly but indignantly. “And I´m sorry, it´s just that I´m still exited, cause you discovered to remove the inhibitors collars! That´s so crash!”  

Thad smiled fondly to the excitement of Bart. They were one another´s mirror image, almost identical twins, if it wasn´t for the fact that Thad´s hair was completely blond, which made his eyes stand out, and Bart´s hair was brownish red, as we mentioned before.

“We can celebrate later, _Bart_ , but now we need to get to work.” Thad said. “Let’s see how many scrap metals we can find.”

Bart just smirked, and said: “Race ya? The one who finds more and fastest win.”

Thad couldn´t help but smirk too. “You´ve got yourself a deal, Allen”

“Prepare to feel the mode. Ready one, two, three, GO!” Bart said.

in less than a second the two boys ran in opposite directions, but they ran at a speed faster than sound, almost as fast as light, you see Thad and Bart were not common humans, they were two of the last speedsters in the world. I toke them less that a minute to collect the scrap metals, that once were part of the young justice HQ. Once they were done and all the scrap was pulled together, Bart asked.

“So… what are we gonna do?”

“Plan B” Thad responded without even looking at him.

“Wait! Are we really building a time machine?!” Bart asked in disbelieve.

“Why you seem so surprised? We talked about it last night.” Thad remembered him.

“Yeah, but, that seemed like a fantasy talk, like you know ‘I wish I have a time machine to correct the future’ I tough we were just daydreaming!” Bart said, still shocked.

“Well I was serious as work camp! If Max´s plan goes wrong, we need a plan B, and that plan B will be returning in time and killing Big Bad Blue! Are you with me or not?!” Thad asked, determined.

Bart was shocked by all that his brother said and how he said it, but once he processed the words, his face softened before saying.

“You know I’m always with you, brother.”

Thad smiled, after hearing that words.

“Crash, you can´t tell to Max though, nor Jennie, or mother, if she dares to show her face around…” Thad said.

“Don´t worry I won’t tadle tale!” Barth said with his hands up in defense. “We are going to need help tough. What about Nathan, he´s good with technology, plus he is from the time before the Reach.”

Thad thought about it for a second.

“Yes, Nathan is fine, we need to start working immediately.” Thad said. “Come one, Bart”

Thad started to doodle models and plans in the soil. Bart smiled before joining him, they had a good plan B.

_‘Those were the nice times.’_

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ‘ _Those were the nice time’_

A 23 years old Bart Allen tough as he woke up from the nicest dream he have had for a while.


	2. A good dream

 

Bart and Jaime’s apartment

-5:45 am

 A 23 years old Bart Allen tough as he woke up from the nicest dream he has had for a while. He stud still, deciding if he wanted to preserve the moment or forget about it completely, he thought he had, that dream, or rather memory was from long time ago, before he escaped the old future. He couldn’t believe how much he missed them.

Beside him he felt the bed twitch.

“Hey, I know you’re up” His boyfriend, Jaime whispered gently. “Another bad dream?”

Bart turned to face him and smiled, feeling Jaime’s loving gaze in the dark.

“No, quite the opposite actually” Bart explained gently. Jaime gave him a confused look.

“Then why did you wake up?” Jaime asked, curiously but careful.

“I guess I’m not use to those dream, so moded, right?” Bart said, actually expecting an answer, but instead Jaime changed the topic, with what Bart considers a horrible question.

“Who’s Thad?”

Bart’s smile faded, leaving a shocked and hurt expression instead. When Jaime noticed this he immediately apologized.

“I’m so sorry amor, I didn’t mean to make you mad, it’s just that.. well you repeated Th… That name a couple of times”

“No, no it’s okay.” Bart said gently, so that Jaime wouldn’t be scare, still he couldn’t believe that he was sleep talking, about Th.. him. He looked at Jaime and smiled fondly, Jaime looked sorry, but still curios, he wouldn’t press further the topic now, so if Bart didn’t tell him the curiosity was going to kill him. “Th.. He was someone, I left behind, back there, in the old future”.

_‘That is not enough information to know who this “Thad” is.’_ The voice of Khaji da echoed through Jaime’s head, even though he agreed with him, he stud quiet   

He wasn’t able to even think his name, so many memories he thought were forgotten came back, making him feel sad. At seeing this Jaime wrapped his arms around Bart so they could cuddle, it did helped Bart.

“I’m sorry, Bart” Jaime said, with a guilty tone.

“It’s not your fault” Bart replied, cause it was true, this Jaime was guilty of anything, Big Bad Blue on the other hand….

“Te amo” Jaime whispered against Bart’s hair, before giving him a soft kiss.

“I love you too blue” Bart said, knowing enough Spanish to understand what he meant. “That means you too Khaji”.

_‘I also find a deep bound with you, Bart Allen’_

Jaime chuckled. “He says he loves you too, you wanna start the day already, it’s almost 7:00?”

“Let’s stay like this for a while” Bart pleaded, and his wish was Jaime’s command.


	3. good morning

‘The alarm clock was THE WORSE thing that could have ever been invited!’  Bart thought as the annoying beeping echoed through the room. ‘It did nothing useful, it only interrupted him and Jaime in this kind of precious moments!’

Bart was using Jaime’s face as a pillow, while Jaime had an arm loosely wrapped around his waist, suddenly he felt the inevitable, Jaime was starting to get up.

“Come one, cielo, I know you heard the alarm” Jaime said. Bart grunted and silently complained, but seconds later he gave in.

“Fine” Bart said while getting up from the bed. “But you have to make breakfast!”

Jaime only chuckled, before answering.

“Okay, but you have to get ready! We’ll be late!” Jaime hurried him.

Bart knew he was right, he sometimes couldn’t believe how far they had made it! Yes, they weren’t technically “engaged”, but! They were in a really serious relationship, they had been going steady for 5 years, 6 months and 12 days, and yes, they had talked about putting a ring on it, but first they have to “be prepare” as Jaime put it, Bart as we mentioned before was 23 and was less than a year away from getting a degree in plastic arts, and Jaime, well, he was 26 and just graduate as an Orthodontist, he was having trouble with the hole “managing your own business”, but some friends of them, that was something that also surprised him, how much their friends changed, you know what friend I’m talking about, the Runaways, after explaining to them the hole Reach situation they all become really close friends, first it was just the original four, Jaime and him, then Virgil introduced his boyfriend, Richie, along with two other guys, Francis and Edwin, to much of Eduardo’s dismay; they were all metahumans, apparently the Reach did not only experimented with electric shocks, there was a gas bomb… and I’m getting way out of topic, back to the topic, Tye and Virgil are the ones that are helping Jaime with the business, since they both studied laws and are now successful lawyers, Virgil and Richie were happily married and now, at the short age of 30 they were raising their 5 almost 6 years old son Alex, how they got to be dads is a hole drama story, all the Runaways felt like it was a Telenovela. Tye was now tribe chief and also married with Asami, they were expecting a baby! How nice! And Ed was about to make the same mistake as his mother and fall in love with a doctor, Dr. Francis, who is college with PHD. Edwin and Professor Richie in the first formal “Research of the Metagene”, but regardless of the titles and diplomas they were all friends, they always hanged out together and gave advise, sometimes other heroes around their age will join them, like Miguel Barragan or Tim Drake or Conner Kent.  

Yes, the people in Bart’s life had moved into the future, Jay and Joan are still happy together, enjoying what’s rest of life, Barry and Iris were raising 4 years old Don and Dawn, even Wally’s parents were happy, they are enjoying retirement as they deserve, and Artemist, well she moved on, she still misses Wally, but she is starting to date again.  

Anyway, the time you toke to read the last two paragraphs, dive them by 5, that is how much Bart toke to be ready, he was already downstairs waiting for Jaime to serve him some toasts.

“Are you exited about school today” Jaime asked as he filled Bart’s plate with toasts.

“naa, la escuella es muy aburrida.” (School is really boring) Bart said, with what Jaime could only describe as the heavier ‘gringo’ accent he had ever heard, still he was proud of Bart.

“Good job with that Spanish, that pronunciation tough…” Jaime said, but he couldn’t get the chance to finish before Bart Joked.

“Okay, I know I sound from America or ‘gringo’ as you and your family say, I’m working on it, not all of us were born with the ability to roll our tongs”

Jaime smirked. “Oh you mean like this ‘ _errrrrrrrrrrrrrre_ ’” he demonstrated, Bart only glared at him, Jaime laughed and continued “don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it, and us Mexicans weren’t born with that ‘ability’ I had a friend back in Mexico who mispronounced the “erre” till she was 16 years old”.

Bart just rolled his eyes, that did make him feel better, he looked at Jaime and changed the topic.

“Speaking of Mexico, Nightwing said that is where we are going tonight, to Gua-dala-jara, is that where you’re from?” Bart asked eyes glowing.

“No, mi vida, I’m Regio, I grew up in a municipio, near Monterrey Nuevo León until I was 10 and moved here, Nuevo León is near the frontier of USA, Guatemala is way farther in Jalisco” Jaime explained happily.

“oohhh” Bart felt a bit disappointed that he didn’t know that, it was important stuff, still he tried to go back to the happy conversation “So, Nevo León? What do you eat in there?”

Jaime chuckled ‘always wandering about food’

“Well there are lots of Mc Donalds, and fast food chains, there are no Taco Bells, because they are offensive to the _real_ tacos, but the most traditional food are Carne asada and Cabrito”. Jaime informed.

“So grilled beef and…… GOAT! You had eaten goats?!” Bart exclaimed in disbelieve, Jaime laughed out loud, because of his boyfriend’s reaction.

“Let’s go, you’ll be late for class”

“But, what does goat taste like?!” Bart asked.

“I’ll tell you when you get home” Jaime said, before kissing his boyfriend good bye.

Bart still wanted answers, but left anyway, not before hearing.

“AND WE ALSO GRILL THE COW’S TONG” echo trough the distance. Bart was going to think a lot about Mexican food in class.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okey, if you haven't realised, I am from Mexico, and I am Regia, and yes I couldn't roll my tong till I was 16, but that it is not irrelevant, what is important is that you, pretty people left kudos and comment what you think please! Hope you like that story I know that it is going slowsito, but it's geting there, I will talk more about the Runaways in comming soon fanfics, specially about Virgil and Richie, why are Francis and Edwin involved, cause is my fanfic, I'm the fan I write the fic.  
> PS: Cabrito taste like chiken, it's really tasty actually and so is cow's tong, taste lot like beef, there is also a soup called menudo, that have pices of cow's intestine, google it!  
> PSS: I do not want to offen anyone with this fic, if you are American, Mxican, Britihs, Martiian, etc tec, you are valid and beautiful.


	4. Personal stuff

 

After an uneventful day, thinking about what cabrito tasted like and Jaime’s smile, Bart decided that he had a nice day in school, for once they drew something instead of listening all day to boring theories of ‘art appreciation’.

‘You can’t teach how to appreciate art!’ Bart thought as he ran towards the nearest zeta tube he could find, he made sure no one was watching before teletransporting to mount justice. He would have rather to run, but he was already late, Jaime and the rest of the team, members still a surprise courtesy of nightwing, were already there.

In less than a blink he was facing the remodel amd new Young Justice HQ.

Bart was rather satisfied to verify that the team members were all close friends, well all the Young Justice and the Teen Titans were close friends, but, you know what I mean.

In the HQ, Jaime was talking to Miguel in fluent fast spanish, using what Jaime called ‘mexicanadas’ like ‘va estar muy padre!’ (It’s gonna be awesome) ‘si, no manches, hace un buen que no voy’ (yeah, no kidding, I haven’t been there in a while). Meanwhile Richie, Tim and Dick were talking about something near the computer, while Bart was wondering what they were talking about, Ronnie (Firestorm, the one in Justice League Action) jumped infront of him while exclaiming.

“Bart! I’m on your team! Bow cool os that! No, sorry, HoW hOt iS ThAt!” Ronni said exited.

Bart smiled wide and happily.

“You know, it’s getting kinda steamy in here, do you know why?” Bart asked jokingly.

“Because, my brother, ThE hEAt Is ON!!” Ronni exclaimed before they both high fived.

Bart was really happy, that kind of happy you can only be when you’re with your funniest friend, till the word brother sunk in, he was about to fall in depression, but thankfully, another voice came in.

“Oh my God, you guys are such dorks!” Courtney(Stargirl) said, as she walked in, with Garfield and Kaldur by her side.

“You mean, we are adorkable?” Ronni

‘Ronald, “adorkable” is not a real word in yhe Queen’s english’ the voice of proffesor Martin Stein echoed in his mind.

asked, Courtney only raised an eyebrow.

Are you guys in our mission too?” Bart asked.

“No, sorry, speedy, we have to patrol around Chicago tonight” Garfield, who at the age of 17 was really tall, slim and handsome...and green, said “But bring me something from Mexico though”

“So what is your mission anyway?” Courtney asked nicely.

Ronni and Bart looked at each other.

“We have no idea, man” Bart said.

“Perhaps, if you were paying attention instead of chatting” Another voice interrupted, this tome it was Dick Grason’s aka Nightwing himself.

Bart and Ronni slowly tourned around to face him, when they did they noticed that the rest of their team were glaring at them in a mocking way, like when your siblings knew you were about to get troubles.

Ronni was the one who dared to talk.

“Sorry Nightwing, please continue”

Nightwing sighed, before continuing.

“As I was saying, Gear reported a signal that belongs to devices identicals of the ones at the CADMUS lab in here, the company promised us that they only had one lab, and we don’t have any reasons to not believe in them, until now.” Nightwing stoped to show the team a holographic image of a bunker in jungleish place.”We have strong reasons to believe that this is a secret CADMUS lab, your mission is to go there and get as much information as you can. Red Robin is in charge”

“Crash” Bart commented.

“Sounds fair” Ronni said

“Yeah the that’s a good choice” Miguel added.

Jaime and Richie agreed too, but they weren’t the ones to say what they are thinking out loud. Red Robin was a good leader.

“Are there any questions?” Nightwing asked.

“Does the government know about this, or us coming?” Jaime asked.

“No, and we don’t want to create an international crisis, so please be as quiet as you can be” Nightwing pleaded, knowing that the young superheroes, including himself were not to found with the words quiet or discreet.

Still the team nodded, silently promising they’ll do their best.

“So if that’s all, what are we waiting for?” Miguel asked impatient.

“I’m building this nano camara that we will insert on the lab, I’m almost done, but I’m missing an ultra transmitter, tha needs to be the size of my son’s nail” Richie said.

Bart suddenly remembered something.

“Thefe was one in my time machine! It survived the explosion, didn’t it?” Bart asked to Tim.

“Yes it did” Tim answered. “In fact, it’s now in the basement, let’s go”

“Wait, we have basement?” Ronni asked before following Tim like the rest.

The basement was nothing special, it was underneath the training room, and was windowless with metal walls, like the rest of the HQ, except that this room looked like a messy Walmart, all yhe stuff was organized but it seemed desorganized, Bart’s time machine was in the center of all the chaos, it was just the way Bart left it.

Richie didn’t wasted any time and started to examine the inside of the machine, everything was fine, until Richie tooke out from the capsule a folded pice of paper.

“What’s this?” He asked as he started to unfold the paper.

Bart almost had a heart attack, he gasped so loud the hole HQ knew. Jaime swears till this day that Nart had never moved as fast as that time, when he snapped the paper from Richie’s hands.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Bart exclaimed once he had the paper safe in his hands.

Every one was staring in awe at him, Bart immediately felt guilty. “I’m sorry, it’s just...personal stuff” he said looking to the floor. “I need to leave this at my locker” with that he left at super speed.

“Okay...moving on” Richie said before continuing to take parts from the machine, but he was still in shock amd wandering about Bart’s reaction, like the rest, specially Jaime, that that just happened, that wasn’t Bart.

Meanwhile Bart was three stores above, about to put the paper in his locker, but before he did it, he couldn’t help but unfold it, it was a picture, probably the only picture he had of his past, it was him, hugging his brother Thad with ine arm and his cousin Jenni, with the other, next to them, there was the gentle smile of Max Mercury, and in the other side, the warm smile of Meloni Thwane. A tear rolled down Bart’s cheek.

‘Why didn’t you came with me?!’ He thought, but he knew the answer, he just didn’t want to face it.

He quickly tossed the picture in his locker, once he came out, he found all the team outside waiting for him.

Aparently they were ready to go to Mexico.


	5. we're all friends

In no time, the team was flying, running or brick-surfing in their way to Guadalajara, everyone was still shocked about Bart’s reaction back in Mount Justice. Miguel, now known as Bunker surfed near Jaime, now known as Blue Beetle, before saying.

“Oye güey, que pex con tu chavo?” (It means “hey dude, what’s with your boyfriend?” but if you look for it in the translator it’s senseless, because this is colloquial, Mexican, Spanish) Jaime and Miguel used to talk in Spanish so that no one could understand, specially when they were talking about important stuff in the middle of training, like Jaime’s firsts dates with Bart. After Bart learned Spanish they had to stop using the Spanish they learned at school, instead they used the one they learned at the ‘barrio’ (neighborhood). Jaime was never comfortable talking to Miguel like this, not only he was hiding things from Bart, but also most of the colloquial language of Mexico was so vulgar, that once, he made the mistake of saying ‘güey’ to a friend over the phone, in the same room as his mother, before he could finish the word, his head was hit with a ‘chancla’ (sandal, yes it happens, believe me, if not google it)

“sepa güey, neta yo nunca lo había visto así” (I don’t know, I honestly have never seen him like that before) Blue Beetle responded, with a worried tone, looking down at the speedster now known as Kid Flash.

“Y, ¿qué rayos era el papel o qué?” (What was that paper?) Bunker asked.

“¡¿A poco crees que yo sé?!” (Do you think I know?!) Blue Beetle asked, kinda offended, Bunker knew no one saw that paper

“¡ta bueno! No es pa que te pongas así de sangrón.” (Okay, it´s no reason to be a jerk) Bunker exclaimed.

Blue Beetle sighed, Bunker was right. “Ya se, namas que Bart me tiene con Jesús en la boca” (I know, it’s just that Bart. then Jaime uses a really, I mean _really_ old and corny expression that means ‘haves me worried’).

“Hablas como tu mamá, y namas haces eso cuando traes broncas, a ver, cuenta” (You ‘re talking like your mom, and you only do that when you’re worried, come on, tell me) Bunker said, really wanting to help his friend.

“No, it’s not the time, nor the place” Blue Beetle said, before looking down and spotting Kid Flash running alongside Red Robin’s motorcycle.

Gear and Firestorm, who were flying a few meters behind, approached to Blue Beetle and Bunker.

“Are you guys talking about what we think you’re talking about?” Gear asked.

“Yeah we were talking about it” Blue Beetle admitted. “It was just…so weird!”

“I know…. Wait! we are all Talking about Bart, right?!” Firestorm said.

Bunker, Blue Beetle and Gear, all sighed and rolled their eyes.

‘Yes Ronald, they were talking about Bartholomew’ Professor’s voice echoed through his head.

“Of course, we are talking about Bart!” Firestorm corrected himself and grinned.

“Yes, but like I was saying, not the time nor the place” Blue Beetle said.

They all had their communicators in mute, so it was kinda a surprise when then the heard.

“If you ladies are done gossiping, we are bout to arrive to the lab.” Robin said through the communicators.

Besides Red Robin, Kid Flash knew very well that they were talking about him, he may not know colloquial Spanish, but he knew hoe to take a hint.

The ones that were flying slowly descended, Robin stepped of out his bike and Kid Flash stopped running. They were in a jungleish deserted place.

“So, this is Guadalajara” Firestorm said, trying to light the mood.

“I used to come here for vacations with my family, from time to time” Bunker added. “The city is really pretty, this is just the empty outsides.”

“Did you grow up here?” Kid Flash finally ventured to talk.

“kinda near, I grew up in a town named ‘El Chillar’ in the State of México” Bunker said, smiling a bit thinking about his natal town, then he remembered why he left and got a little sad when he remembered Gabriel, but pushed that thought aside. Thankfully Robin sensed his sadness.

“We need to keep going, we will travel this few meters by feet, we can not risk to be spotted.” Robin said serious. “Stay alert” 

They started to walk in silence. A few meters later Robin asked.

“Gear, do you think that they’re tracing us?”

Gear looked at what appeared to be a phone, before saying.

“Doesn’t seem so” Gear answered.

“How much farther?” Kid Flash wined.

“Soon” was all that Robin said before they returned to walk in silence.

Kid Flash grunted, Blue Beetle discreetly took his hand into his, and smiled Kid Flash silently thanked him with a smile of his own.

It didn’t take lot of time before they saw behind the bushes a plain concrete windowless building, the only way to get in was the main entrance, that lacked of a door.

“Do you get any signals of booby traps?” Robin asked Gear.

“None at all” Gear said shocked.

They all started at the place for a moment.

“Shall we just, walk inside or…..” Firestorm said. It all seemed so easy, there were no guards, at least not in sight, and there was no door.

Red Robin studied the place, creating a strategy, there was almost nothing, until he noticed a strange color in a branch of a three.

“hey, Gear, does your sensor detects, wired cameras?” Red Robin asked.

“No only wireless, wired cameras are almost extinct” Gear answered.

“Hermano, this is Mexico! States with small cities are like a decade behind USA technology, even Big cities are like 5 years behind!” Blue Beetle exclaimed.

“Unless you’re rich” Bunker added.

“Well, that would have been good to know. _Before_ we came here!” Gear exclaimed.

“Okay, okay, stop!” Red Robin stopped them before the thing scaled. “There is no point to fight now, the point now, is that we need to get to the building without being spotted”

“I got Khaji Da to make the cables more visible, there are 6 of them” Blue Beetle said.

“Easy” Kid Flash said before running around disconnecting every camera he could find, without being spotted. “Done!” he said after coming back.

“He is done, Khaji Da can’t fin more cables” Blue Beetle said.

“Okay, let’s go, but carefully” Red Robin said.

They walked carefully and on guard, Red Robin had his fighting staff on guard, Bunker had his fist up, just like Bart, Blue Beetle and Gear were the only ones that had laser guns disposable.

Once they reached the opening, Blue Beetle came in plasma canon first, but there was no one.  All the team came in and filled the small space.

“This place is the size of a closet” Bunker commented.

“So, you guys are used to it” Ronni, the only man in the room who was straight, joked. He got five deadly glares. “Okay, yes it was a bad joke, sorry! But you are right this place is the size of a closet.”

“Or, an elevator…” Gear said as he clicked his phone. Suddenly the floor moved.

They all stumbling for a moment before getting the hang of it. They slowly started to descend.

“Gear, you’re a genius” Bunker admitted and grinned at him, they all grinned at him, even Red Robin. Gear smiled back.

“Thanks, it’s appreciated” Gear said. They kept descending.

“Khaji da says that we are about to be there.” Blue Beetle informed.

“Be Ready, we don’t know what we’ll find” Red Robin said, before he got on guard, like the rest of the team.

When the elevator’s doors open, there was a guard dressed in white, that wasn’t expecting a purple brick to hit him in the face. The team came out still in prepared for an attack, but there was still no one.

“It looks like there are no genomorphs around” Firestorm said.

“How do you know how a genomorph looks?” Kid Flash asked his friend.

“I don’t know, but there must look like… no humans” Firestorm replied and snorted at his own stupid answer, Kid Flash snorted to.

“Focus, this is a research mission, Gear, you come with me to hack the main computer, Blue Beetle and Firestorm go left and Kid Flash and Bunker go right, try to see everything and every room, and if you find files don’t doubt in bringing them” Red Robin ordered.

“Sir yes sir!” Firestorm said jokingly “Let’s go Bugie”

Blue Beetle rolled his eyes but smiled before following Firestorm.

Gear and Red Robin headed to the main computer, and Bunker and Kid Flash stood behind for a moment.

“Bet you I can knock out more bad guys than you” Kid Flash said, looking at Bunker, who smiled.

“What kind of bet are we talking about?” He asked amused.

“10 family size bags of chicken whistles!” Kid Flash said exited.

“Okay, but if I win I want…..” he was about to say ‘I want to see the paper’ but he thought twice and said “The new book of the King Killer chronicles” 

Kid Flash smiled widely “Deal!”

And he ran off at supper speed.

“Hey not fair!” Bunker exclaimed before following him. ‘When Bart is ready he will tell us, we’re all friends after all’ he though.


	6. Lab Rats

Kid Flash and Bunker had been around the right side of the lab, it wasn’t completely high tech, but it was full with computers, monitors, gizmos and electric doors, and lots of guards, so far Kid Flash had beaten 10 while Bunker only beaten 7, but still he was determined to get that book.

The rooms they had get into haven’t been that specials, just labs with test tubes and beakers, they took all the pictures they could, and Bunker saved some files he thought they were important.

“Are we done yet?” Kid Flash asked childishly.

“Sweetie I told you to go to the bathroom before we hit the road” Bunker joked. Kid Flash grunted angrily.

“I’m not a child! And I don’t need to use the restroom!” He said annoyed. Bunker just smirked.

“We are just missing that room” Bunker said pointing to a big electric door, it was bigger than the other doors they hacked.

“Okay, let’s finish this” Kid Flash said, before phasing trough the door, a trick he learned a few years ago, when he got to the other side, he discovered that the door didn’t lead directly to the lab, unlike the others, no this one led to a balcony, which was connected to a stair, that lead to an under ground super huge lab, it was all illuminated with red lights, so it was a little hard to see, but Kid Flash could see people in lab coats.

Kid Flash’s concentration was broken when he heard a faint knock from the door.

‘Miguel!’ He thought before opening the door, there was a small metallic sound but thankfully no one noticed, Kid Flash pulled Bunker in at supper speed.

“Hey don’t be rude!” Bunker hissed, but Kid Flash silenced him.

“sshhhh, look!” he whispered.

There were exactly four people underneath them, a slim woman, with sharp face and brown hair which was tied in a bun, a fat man, with no hair and pale skin, an old man with gray hair, but he didn’t look that old, it was like he was in his late fifties, and a skinny man with glasses and curly hair, they were all wearing lab coats

“This better be good, Dr. Morales, I did not come from the States to study a lab mistake.” The white-haired man.

“With all do respect Dr. Jones, I wouldn’t have come all the way from Guatemala if this wasn’t an amazing discovery” The woman, Dr. Morales, said with a serious face.

“Where is Guatemala?” Kid Flash whispered to Bunker.

“It’s a small country, in the south of Mexico” Bunker whispered back.

They were all looking at what seemed a giant test tube, a capsule, it was too opaque for Kid Flash and Bunker to see what was in it.

“This does seem like an unusual result.” The fat doctor said.

“Unusual?! This may change all the research Dr. Gordon” Dr. Moral exclaimed, Kid Flash and Bunker snorted quietly, because ‘Gordo’ means fat in Spanish, what an unfortunate name.

“What is so special about this specimen, anyway.” The skinny man said.

“The special thing, Dr. Brown.” Dr, Morales started, before she took out a remote control and clicked a button. “It’s that there’s two”

The capsule opened, at the beginning the typical fog came out, but after that cleared up, Kid Flash saw something that will scare him from life. Inside the capsule there were two little boys, they couldn’t be older than 6 years old, not only that, they were identical, not only to each other but…

“KF, they look like….” Bunker started, but Kid Flash finished the sentences.

“They look like me” Kid Flash said faintly, he felt like he was about to pass out, the same brownish red hair and the same face he used to have when he was that age, the picture he saw before the mission just returned to his mind, it was the exact same face that he had, and that Thad had and that they had, The children had their eyes closed, Bart was silently praying for them not to be yellow, it would be too much. “Oh Dear God…”

“Despierten, niños” (Kids, wake up) Dr. Morales said, with a voice that send chills down Bunker and Kid Flash’s backs, before she clicked another button.

Both of the children opened their eyes simultaneously, they were dark brown, just like Jaime’s, Bart thanked the Lord. The kids were all in white, the only thing that they could use to tell them apart were the symbols in their chest, the one in the right was wearing a red plus sing the one on the left a minus

“Facinating!” Dr. Brown exclaimed. “How did this happened, there were supposed to be one”

“They were one, until it splitted, like a fertilized egg when the mother is having twins.” Dr. Morales explained. “That’s what they are, twins”

The use of the word twins made Bart want to flee, to run like he used to do when he was afraid, but those kids, they need help.

“I admit that this is uncommon, but I don’t see the reason we should study this.” Dr. Jones said.

“Niños, porque no le demostramos al Dr. Jones que los hace especiales.” (kids, why don’t we show Dr. Jones why are you so special.) Dr. Morales said, before clicking another button, the kids held hands and did something that made Bart´s wishes to go to multiply by 10, they ran at super speed around the lab, side by side, never letting go of each other’s hand. “Stop!” The kids stopped. “Now look what happens when they’re not touching”

She clicked another button, this time only the kid with the plus sing ran, but he was no faster than an Olympic runner.

“And our last trick, look what happen when you place them the wrong way” Dr. Morales said, she clicked another button, the kid that was running stopped and returned to his brother, but instead of taking his brother’s right hand he tried took his left, except he couldn´t it was obvious the were both trying, but there was an invisible force that kept them apart. “like magnetism”

“Fascinating, do they speak any English?” Dr. Gordon asked.

“They sort of understand it, but they do not speak it, but there is no need for them to do that, all I need to control them is this.” She said, showing the remote proudly. Bart felt sick, no he felt angry, no he felt furious, that was the last straw, they couldn’t do that to innocent children! His mind was suddenly filled with memories of him and his own twin in work camp, the rage was inevitable, and the fact that the children looked like him did not help.

Kid Flash ran, as fast as he could to the lady with the remote, he needed to smash that thing to the wall, along with her.

“KID FLASH NO!” he heard Bunker scream, unfortunately he was not the only one who heard him. Before he knew it, Kid Flash was tackled at super speed by the two boys.

“Please! I don’t want to hurt you!” Kid Flash exclaimed, with the few breaths he had left, to the boys that were pining him to the ground.

“Don’t bother. They only do as I say” Dr. Morales said calmly, Kid Flash growled at her, with all of the hate he could find inside him.

“Yo, jerks!” Bunker said Before jumping off the balcony and started to throw small purple bricks at the doctors, once he was in the floor the twins left Kid Flash to catch his breath, too go and try to attack Bunker, but he just kept placing purple walls so they couldn’t attack him. He didn’t want to hurt them either.

While Bunker was avoiding the twins and Kid Flash was catching his bread, Dr. Gordon ran and pushed a red button on the wall, the alarm just went on, Kid Flash got up, and tried to go for the remote during the chaos, but then he heard Bunker.

“KF whe gotta go find the others!” Bunker yelled, he was right, but he was not gonna leave the twins in there, they deserved to be free.

“HEY! Dr. DORKALES! BET YOUR LAB RATS AREN’T AS FAST AS ME” He screamed, before he ran out of the room, he was pleased to hear an angry ‘AFTER HIM’ and a zoom behind him.

Bunker imprisoned all of the doctors’ foot with purple bricks so they couldn’t move, then he snapped the remote out of the woman’s hand and crashed with his hands covered with bricks.

“That doesn’t matter, they already have that last command in their chips, they will do it until it’s fulfilled, or they die, whatever happens first.” Dr. Morales said smiling.

‘No golpes a las damas Migule!’ (don’t hit a lady Miguel!) his sister’s voice echoed through his head as he grunted angrily at Dr. Morales.

Blue Beetle and Firestorm didn’t have much trouble in the left side of the facility, yes they had to knock downs some guard, but besides that, this mission was pretty boring, so Firestorm filled the empty space with questions, jokes and commentaries.

“So, what do you think they do here?” Firestorm asked as he looked at a beaker with mystery liquid. He started to find its atomically composition just for fun.

 “Probably study genetics, you know, DNA, cloning, that kind of stuff.” Blue Beetle answered none chantingly.

“Cloning! Just like Kon or Roy?!” Firestorm asked, suddenly more amused.

“Yes actually, Kon was found in a CADMUS lab, like this.” Blue Beetle said.

“Do you think they are cloning one of us right now?” Firestorm asked again, now the mystery liquid was toy car, thanks to the arranging of tis atoms. Blue Beetle snorted, they were the run aways, not the Justice league, no one would want clone them.

“I doubt that” He answered Firestorm.

“Still it would be awesomely weird.” Firestorm said.

“I guess” Just as Blue Beetle said this the lights turned reddish and an alarm sound went on.

Blue Beetle looked at Firestorm.

“Hey don´t look at me, I didn’t touch anything!” he said with his arms up in defense.

“We have to find the others!” Beetle said, before they left the room flying.

Red Robin and Gear didn’t have much trouble finding the main computer, sure they had to fight some guards, but other than that, it was easy.

When they hacked the door to the computer chamber, they were surprised when they found it empty, there was no one, the closed the door, so no one saw them and sat in the computer.

Trough the years, Gear’s abilities amplified, he discovered new powers, now he was a technopath, he could control machines with his mind, and he’s got to admit it was way better than just being smart. He no longer need backpack, the little guy was still in his room, but to the missions he only took his phone and his laser gun that could knock a guy out. So, it was the easiest thing to hack CADMUS Main computer, and send all the files to a computer at their HQ.

“The files are being send” Gear informed Red Robin “It may take a while, so get comfy”

Red Robin relaxed and sat in a chair besides his friend.

“So, how is Alex?” Red Robin asked.

Gear smiled at the memory of his 5 years old son begging him to let him go to the mission, but it doesn’t matter if he had electrikinesis like his pops, he was still too young for that, not to mention the other thing.

“Waiting to be super hero, like his dads, sometimes it’s just annoying” Gear said smiling. Red Robin smiled too. “How are you’re brothers and sisters?”

Red Robin sighed. “Every day they are more annoying, specially Damian, no wait, Jason is annoying, Damian is just mean.”

Richie laughed. “hahaha, yes I believe you.”

“Still, it seems nice to have siblings, well at least I always wanted that, actually me and V are thinking about adoption, so that Alex isn’t so lonely.” Gear said.

“Really? That’s great!” Red Robin said.

Just after that, a beep came from Gear’s phone. He looked at it.

“Edwin says the files arrived” Gear said, happy chat being forgotten they were now in super hero mode.

“Good, we will study them when we arrive” Red Robin said, before the alarm went on. “We need to reunite!” Red Robin turned on his communicator. “Attention, we will meet in the elevator!”

Three _copy_ were heard from the other side.

“Where is Kid Flash?” Gear asked.

“We’re about to find out. Let’s go!”

And they ran off.


	7. Just for now

“Gentlemen, I present to you the meanest jerks in this moment of history” Bunker said, while dragging the bricks that imprisoned the doctors’ foot. They were all in front of the elevator, except for Kid Flash. 

“Who are they?” Red Robin asked. None of them expected to see the doctors.

“And more importantly. What are those?!” Firestorm exclaimed, while pointing to the bricks in the doctors’ foot. He only got deadly glares even from the doctors.

‘I suggest that we eradicate the Ronnie Raymond’ Khaji Da’s voice echoed trough Blue Beetle’s head, he almost agreed with him, almost.

“Not now Fire! Bunker where is Kid Flash?!” Blue Beetle asked full with worry.

Bunker took some time to order his thoughts, before finally saying. “He is being chased by speedster Children that came out of a giant test tube, and are being mind controlled, and that may chase Kid Flash until the end of the world” Bunker said, now they were all glaring at him.

“I’m sorry, did you just said that my best friend is being chased by children, that are speedsters and came out of a giant test tube?” Firestorm asked in disbelieve.

“How did they get here?” Blue Beetle asked.

“Well, they said they were lab subjects, and they did come out of a giant test tube, I believe they were made here.”  Bunker said.

“Made here? Like Superboy, like, like clones?” Firestorm asked shocked.

“Well if that’s the case, we already know whose clones they are.” Bunker said.

“What do you mean?” Gear asked, his super brain was already running trying to comprehend.

“It’s better if I show you. Come on!” Bunker said, they were ready to go, before they left, Dr. Jones finally dared to say.

“Not so fast! I have a bomb detonator, so let’s all stay calm, and negotiate.”

“Where do you have the detonator?” Red Robin demanded.

“Inside me, it is connected to my brain and if I blink several times, the bomb goes off, and takes a quarter of the city of Guatemala with it.” Dr. Jones said, very seriously. They were all speechless.

“I don’t know what scares me most, what you just said or the fact that I believe it.” Firestorm admitted.

“The fact that it’s true!” Gear exclaimed, wide eyed, while looking at his cellphone.

“You have, let’s say15 minutes, to return project M2, before this hole place blows up.” Dr. Jones said calmly.

“You will blow up to, you won’t dare.” Red Robin said.

“Try me” Dr. Jones cared.

They stood in a staring competition for a while, before Red Robin look away.

“Find Kid Flash. Fast!” Red Robin ordered, the others didn’t need to be told twice, they were already leaving, but Red Robin at mid track. “Gear, do you think you can disconnect the detonator.”

“Probably, but it’s so small it may take a while.” Gear admitted.

“Try. I’ll go find Kid Flash.” Red Robin said before running behind other heroes. Gear silently complained, he wanted to help Kid Flash, but he decided that he could be more useful here, so he took out his cellphone.

“Poor thing, his friends don’t let him play with them” Dr. Morales said sarcastically, but Gear didn’t mind her, instead he clicked his phone several times. Suddenly Dr. Jones felt a small shock in his system, it wasn’t that strong but it was enough to inconvenience him.

“What was that?” Dr. Jones demanded to know.

“Well do you know, like in the game ‘operation’ when you don’t get it right the first time, you get a small shock, well it’s kinda like that.” Gear said mischievously. “But you can help, you know? Just give me the serial number, and we are good to go.”

Dr. Jones remained silent, before he got another shock.

* * *

 Kid Flash had troubles not the ‘I’m not gonna make it out alive’ kind of problem, more like the ‘I don’t know what the heck to do to help’ kind of problem. It’s been almost a minute, in speedsters time, almost an hour, and the boys didn’t stop following him.

“¡Por favor, solo quiero ayudar!” (Please, I just wanna help!) Kid Flash screamed several times, in Spanish and English, but the kids never showed signs of being conscious about what he was saying.

He ran besides, Blue Beetle, Firestorm and Red Robin several times. He heard through the communicator things like. “Babe, stop!” “Dude what are you doing?!” “Kid Flash, report immediately!” but he didn’t care, all he was thinking about was in how he could get those kids to stop chasing him. He kept running, until he reached a dead end, if he phased trough it, the kids would get at least a bloody nose, if not some broken things, so he stopped and braced himself for the inevitable.

He was slammed against the wall at supper speed, it did hurt a lot, but thanks to that Kid Flash saw something he didn’t noticed before, they had earplugs. The twins backed up again and slammed him again, he needed to work fast so he started to create an strategy; he was slammed, once, twice, there was a time spam of 0.85 seconds each slam, the third slam, he was ready, one two three, now! His plan succeeded, he took out the earplugs from their ears. The boys’ first instinct was to cover their ears and shut their eyes as if it hurt. Kid Flash took the chance to catch his breath, in no time the twins slowly opened their eyes and looked at Kid Flash.

“Pe..Perdon..” (Sor..Sorry) the boy with the plus sing said, before he took his brother’s hand. Kid Flash knew what that meant.

With all the speed he could manage, he grabbed the wrist of the boy with a minus sing, that kept him from running off, and the other one wasn’t gonna to abandon his brother. For the first time he had their attention.

“Wait!.. ¡Esperen! ¡Quiero ayudar!” (Wait! I wanna help!) Kid Flash said. “Por favor, escuchenme.” (please listen) he said more gently.

“¿Nos va a regresar con la señora mala?” (Are you gonna return us to the mean lady)” The boy with the plus sing dared to ask.

“No, nunca” (No, never) He said seriously. “Les prometo que no dejare que les pase nada” (I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

 The twins looked at Kid Flash, then they looked at each other, then at Kid Flash again. Kid Flash would never know if it was his mispronounced Spanish, or if they had some sort of bond, or if the twins were just that desperate. But they slowly nodded their heads.

Kid Flash smiled softly at them and the tins smiled a bit too.

“¿Como se llaman?” (What are your names?) Kid Flash’s smile faded when the twins just shrugged. ‘Oh Dear God’ he thought. “Okay, por ahora, tu seras Más y tu seras Menos, solo por ahora, les prometo que cuando salgamos de aquí tendrán nombres reales.” (Okay, for now, you’ll be Más and you’ll be Menos, but just for now, I promise you that once we are out of here, you’ll have true names.)

The boys smiled a bit wider, this time Kid Flash could notice a small gap in their front tooth, Más’ was bigger, Kid Flash couldn´t help but find it adorable. 

* * *

 

Gear was about to finish disconnecting the detonator, when he discovered that he could disconnect devices with his mind, the Atom warned him that when the devices where connected to the body, he could confuse the brain with the device, so he could literally disconnect the brain, for this to not to happen he always recalled data on the real devices, that’s why all the serial numbers and sequences of transitions, once he identifies the device, something that his friends called “The Generator Rex part” happened, they called it like that because it looked just like when Rex was curing Nanites.

Speaking about his friends, Red Robin, Bunker, Firestorm and Blue Beetle arrived just when this part started, Gear’s eyes were electric blue, and lots of inner circuits left from his body and reached for the device disconnecting it.

“Done.” He said.

“Very good! To bad that you didn’t knew about the countdown.” Dr, Morales said. Everyone looked at her shocked, even the doctors didn’t know.

“What countdown?!” Red Robin demanded.

“Well the one that started when the alarm was pushed, of course.” She said calmly.

“Where is it?!” He demanded again.

“Around the end of aisle B10, you’ll never reach it in time” She said mischievously.

“B10, that is the left side.” Gear informed.

“That is where Kid Flash was heading!” Blue Beetle exclaimed worried.

Red Robin turned on his communicator. “Kid Flash! Report immediately! There is a bomb in your area! Do you copy?! There is a bomb in your area!”

* * *

 Kid Flash was preoccupated, thinking about how the team would react with the twins and vice versa, until suddenly his communicator came on.

_“Kid Flash! Report immediately! There is a bomb in your area! Do you copy?! There is a bomb in your area!”_

“What kind of proportions does it have?” he asked, through his communicator.

_“It is dangerous, there may be civilians at risk”_

Kid Flash didn’t have to know more. “I’ll take care of it”. He turned off his communicator before they could talk him out of it.

* * *

 

 _“I’ll take care of it”_ Red Robin heard before the communication went off.

“Kid Flash?!”

“Kid Flash do you copy?!” He turned off his communicator too. “We need to move. Now!”

“What happened, where is Kid Flash?” Blue Beetle asked alarmed.

“He said he Will take care of it” Robin answered. “Look I don’t like the idea either, but we have no time, and he had done stuff like this before.”

“You go, I’ll go and help Kid Flash!” Blue Beetle said before flying off, at almost super speed.

“You heard the man, move! And don’t forget the prisoners.” Red Robin ordered.

* * *

 “¡¿HAY UNA BOMBA?!” (THERE IS A BOMB?!?!) Menos asked alarmed.

‘Right, they understand some English’ Kid Flash tough. “Do you know how to get to the exit?” He asked. The twins shocked their heads in ‘no’. “Okay, listen, I need you to wait for me, right here, do not move an inch from this place. Understood?”

The twins nodded. Kid Flash trusted them and ran into all the places in the areas to find the bomb, he found it in short time, 30 seconds on count down, he ran, three seconds latter he crashed with Blue Beetle.

“Ow! Blue, what are you doing?!” Kid Flash asked angry.

“Me?! What the heck are YOU doing?!” Blue Beetle answered even more angry.

“Trying to save the city! Come on!” He said before running off again, Blue Beetle followed him.

They entered into the same lab Kid Flash first saw the boys.

“Open it” he said referring to the capsule, Blue Beetle did as tell and Kid Flash threw the bomb in there, then Blue Beetle Closed it.

“We need to get Más and Menos!” Kid Flash said and ran at maximum speed.

“Who?” Blue Beetle managed to said, before flying off behind him.

The boys were still waiting in the place they were instructed.

“Kids, don’t move!” Kid Flash yelled.

Blue Beetle picked up Menos while Kid Flash picked up Más.

“Blue, the wall!” Kid Flash said, Blue Beetle blew up the wall. They managed to get out just a second before the bomb exploded. Thanks to the capsule, only the lab exploded, not half the city. They ‘safely’ landed in the ground, I say ‘safely’ because they got several bumps in the way.

“That was close…” Kid Flash whispered before giggling. Blue Beetle couldn’t help but snicker too.

“Way to close” He said, suddenly he noticed that Menos was clinging on him for dear life, hiding his face in Beetle’s chest. “Hey, you okay little guy?” he asked.

Menos slowly looked up at Blue Beetle, and once that both of them got a glance of eachother, the gasped and jumped up a bit, Menos was afraid of Blue Beetle’s mask, and Blue Beetle was shocked by, well….

“No, no, no, it’s okay, it’s just a mask” Kid Flash said, trying to comfort Menos. “Blue show him please.”

Jaime Reyes wasn´t operating right now, but Khaji Da did took off the mask, underneath it there was a really shocked Jaime.

“Jaime, are you okay?” Kid Flash asked.

“Bart, he looks like you” Jaime said, as if this was the world’s greatest news, then he looked at Más, his expression of shock multiplied by two (haha, see what I did there XD) “They look like you!”

“Hey you guys okay?!” They heard Firestorm from the distance, he and the rest of the team were approaching, o Lord this was gonna be interesting.


	8. That depends

“Hey!, are you guys okay?!” They heard Firestorm approaching from the distance, along woth the rest of the team.

 

Kid Flash was worried, and that was just saying something, not only Jaime was not operating, but Más and Menos were about to run because of who they considered estrangers. Suddenly Kid Flash arranged his priorities, first he had to slow down the team, so they wouldn’t come with guns and bricks ready to fire.

 

“Yes we are! Don’t worry!” He managed to yell back. Not the most reassuring thing but it worked, then he needed to make sure that the kids didn’t run away, if they were anything like him when he was their age, they were already choosing the direction with more obstacles so they wouldn’t be followed, so he turned to them and gently smiled before saying. “Don’t worry, they are good, son buenos.” Thankfully the twins seemed to relax a bit, still they were ready to flee anytime. Now the last priority was to reboot Jaime’s brain, that might be a tough one, and unfortunately, he didn’t have time to start before his friends arrived.

 

“HOW THE HECK COULD YOU DO THAT TO US!” Firestorm exclaimed angrily, he was the first one to arrive he was soon followed by the rest, they didn’t look happy at Kid Flash ether. “YOU COUuld have dieeee....” He suddenly realized that he was not only scolding Kid Flash and Blue Beetle, but also two little kids, who looked very familiar. “Holy sh..”

 

Gear punched him in the arm before he finished swearing. “Dude, they are kids!”

 

“Ow! Sorry, sorry!” Firestorm apologized, then he remembered why he was gonna swear. “What, the how when?!”

 

“What he said.” Red Robin said, finally loosing off from the mission, that went terribly wrong if you haven’t noticed, they exploded another CADMUS lab, Batman wasn’t gonna be happy.

 

“This are the kids that came out from the giant test tube!” Bunker exclaimed pointing at the kids, the level of his voice scared the kids, so they flinched and backed up a bit.

 

“Shhh, please! You are scaring them.” Kid Flash pleaded, then he looked back at the boys. “Come on, they are good people”

 

The kids did come closer, but they still were cautious.

 

Gear was the one who dared to talk. “Hi, I’m Richie” he said while ignoring Red Robin’s punch in the arm for using his real name. “What are your names.”

 

“Umm, they don’t have real names, yet, so umm for now he is Más and he is Menos” Kid Flash said, putting a hand in the shoulder of each boy when he said the names.

 

Suddenly Firestorm realized that Jaime was beside them, speechless looking at nothing. “And he is?”

 

Kid Flash sighed. “In shock...”

 

“Yeah, no kidding Sherlock” Bunker said as he waved his hand in front of Jaime’s face, but he didn’t notice.

 

“Blue Bleetle, we are in cover!” Red Robin reminded him. Khanji Da placed the mask over Jaime’s face, but still with the mask he was in awe.

 

Inside Jaime’s head, there wasa really interesting mental breakdown going on.

* * *

 

‘Jaime Reyes, there is no reason to be in these levels of shock, the Más and Menos doesn’t represent a threat’ Khanji Da said.

 

‘They look like Bart, they are Bart’s clones aren’t they, they were made with Bart’s DNA.’ Jaime thought, not really paying attention to Khanji Da.

 

‘What would be the problem if they were Bart Allen’s clones?’ Khanji Da asked.

 

‘They wouldn’t be only his clones, they would be his.... O Dios mío!’ Jaime thought.

 

‘Jaime Reyes, you need to snap out of it!’ Khanji Da exclaimed.

* * *

 

“He is just digesting it” Kid Flash said.

 

Suddenly the twins started to giggle softly. “Se ve como un tonto” (he looks like a fool) Más whisper ed to Menos, but it was clear that the boys didn’t know how to keep secrets.

 

“Bueno miren quienes pueden hablar!” (Well look who can talk!) Bunker exclaimed happily. The twins just smiled sheepishly.

 

“Do they speak any english?” Gear asked.

 

“They understand most of it, but the can’t speak it.” Kid Flash explained.

 

“Cool!” Firestorm exclaimed.

 

“It’s impressive, but may I remind you that we need to wake up Beetle and go. M’gann is gonna pick us up in the bio ship, we will take the prisoners too.” Red Robin said.

 

“Where are they by the way?” Kid Flash asked

 

“In an improvised purple prison” Bunker answered.

 

“Good” he said, then he approached to Red Robin so he could whisper in his ear. “The kids are terrified of Dr. Morales, if they see her they may run away.”

 

Thankfully they did know how to keep a secret, so the boys didn’t find out.

 

“Copy that, don’t worry.” Red Robin said outlaud.

 

“Oh more secrets, yupi” Firestorm said sarcastically.

 

Finally they bio ship appeared in the sky.

 

“About time!” Bunker said.

 

Kid Flash suddenly was scared about how the kids would react to the space ship.

 

“Woow” Más and Menos said in unison, for the first time they weren’t afraid of the unknown.

 

‘You boys are in really big trouble’ Miss Martian voice echoed trough their heads

 

“Nnaaaa, they can’t get mad at us.” Firestorm said playfully.

 

‘Miss Martian, I need you to land a few meters further’ Red Robin thought, M’gann did as she was asked. “You three, make Blue Beetle react.” He said referring to Kid Flash and the twins. “The rest come with me, to take care of the prisoners”

 

‘Thanks’ Kid Flash mouthed to Red Robin before they left.

 

“¿Nos vamos a subir al la cosa voladora?” (Are we going inside that flying thing?) Menos asked curiously, there was a glint of excitement in his eyes, his brother looked the exact same way.

 

Kid Flash smiled before answering. “Yes, but first we have to wake Blue Beetle.”

 

Kid Flash sighed, Blue was sitting on the floor, not really aware of his surroundings, with and awe expression on his face.

 

“¿Esta vivo?” (¿Is he alive?) Menos asked.

 

“No se, ¿Los picamos con un palo?” (I don’t know, shall we poke him with a stick?) Más asked, kinda really wanting to do it.

 

“What? No!” Kid Flash said, give an annoyed look at the boys, who just shrugged.

 

“Entonces ¿qué hacemos?” (So, then What shall we do?) Menos asked, Kid Flash suddenly realised that Menos was a really curious fella.

 

“Cacheteralo!” (Slap him!) Más said, he was more of a random person.

 

“No!” Kid Flash exclaimed, he sighed and kneeled next to Blue. “Blue, honey, I need you to snap out of it.” He said gently, placing a hand in Blue’s shoulder.

 

“Miel?” (Honey?) Menos asked.

 

“Tal vez le gusta mucho la miel y siempre se despierta para comerla” (Maybe he likes honey a lot so he always wakes up to eat it) Más said. Kid Flash from one hand couldn’t believe that those boys just went through a traumatic experience and now they were talking like nothing had happened, they had his DNA alright, from the other hand he was kinda glad the twins were warming up to him, plus he didn’t want to explain the hole gay boyfriend thing just now, so he let them believe whatever they wanted.

 

“Jaime, snap out of it!” Kid Flash said a bit louder while shaking Jaime’s shoulder.

 

Más came closer, Kid Flash looked at him curiously, Más was going to poke Jaimes check, he did it slow enough for Kid Flash to stop him if he wanted to, but since he wasn’t stopped the first time he started to do it again and again. “¡Señor Jaime, despierte!” (Wake up Mr. Jaime!)

 

At first it didn’t work, but then his brother joined him “¡Señor!” “¡SEÑOR!” That final scream made it.

 

Blue Beetle gasped as he suddenly came back to reality., but that didn’t stop the twins from poking his face, “¡Señor!” “¡Señor!”

 

“¡Hey, no me digan señor! No estoy tan viejo” (hey, don’t call me Mr.! I’m not that old.) Blue said while he gently removed the kids’ hands from his face.

 

“Welcome back.” Kid Flash said before hugging Blue.

 

“So, this wasn’t a dream, huh?” Blue asked while looking at the boys while Kid Flash hugged him from behind.

 

The twins just smiled shyly, suddenly not feeling so talkative anymore.

 

“Blue, this are Más and Menos” Kid Flash informed him.

 

Blue looked at them still worried about what that meant, but he couldn’t help but smile at them a bit, they smiled too.

 

“Where are the rest?” Blue asked.

 

“Waiting for us” Kid Flash said. “Let’s go!”

 

The four of them started to walk, it was more than obvious that Jaime’s head was still running a hundred miles per hour, but he tried to ignore it, for a while.

 

It didn’t take long before reaching the bio ship, where they were greeted by Red Robin and Miss Martian.

 

“Long time not sees!” Kid Flash exclaimed before hugging her, Blue hugged her after him.

 

“Yeah I know, it’s the lifestyle” she said while hugging them, she looked exactly the same as she did when Bart first met her. “Aww, and who are these little cuties?” She asked referring about Más and Menos.

 

“Oh yes, M’gann, they’re Más and Menos.” Kid Flash introduced them.

 

“Aaww, they’re so cute, are they yours?” She asked.

 

“What?!” Both Blue Beetle and Kid Flash freaked out. “No, no, no, no!” The said smiling awkwardly.

 

Suddenly Gear came out of the ship. “Actually....”

 

Neither Blue, nor KF were new in the cloning topic, they already had drawn a conclusion.

 

“Oh God..” they both said together.

 

“You better come inside for this.” Red Robin said guiding them, the twins followed behind.

 

“Wwooooww...” the boys whispered once inside.

 

M’gann went to her place and the ship started to go up, the twins ran at super speed to the window, to see the view down getting smaller. Blue, Fire, Red and Gear didn’t know that they could do that, so they were pretty surprised.

 

“Yes, of course the can do that!” Blue Beetle said with a bit of annoyance and sarcasm, to be honest this was taking the situation to the edge.

 

“You know what they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from...” Firestorm started to say, but a deadly glare from Blue Beetle made him stop. “Well you know what, who cares what they say.”

 

“You better sit down for this.” Gear said as he sat in front of the computer. They all sat next to him. “Okay... so... how do you want me to explain this?”

 

Kid Flash and Blue Beetle look at each other, then to Gear again.

 

“Just rip the band aid dude” Blue Beetle said softly.

 

“They are Bart’s clones” Gear said finally confirming everyone’s theory. “But, there is something more.”

 

Everyone looked at him surprised and expectantly, their looks were silently asking for more.

 

“So... as well as you may know CADMUS was, well more like is making an army of genetically modified metahumans, so they can ‘replace us’ for not saying get rid of us. So anyway, apparently, they were mixing things up a bit, they wanted to mix superpowers, to see which ones were the more compatible. That means that there is another person’s DNA involved. I found some files, that talks about Más and Menos they said that they weren’t supposed to be two, they were supposed to be just one, but something went wrong and CADMUS theorized that it was because of their second power, and that it also why they need to be holding hands or making contact with each other for their speed to work, so” Gear explained vastly, obviously wanting to avoid the topic.

 

“Richard! Get to the point!” Kid Flash yelled desperately.

 

“They are Jaime’s!” Richie yelled him back. “That’s why the hole magnet polarity thing, they got some molecules of Khanji Da’s antivirus, and well, I don’t know men! I’m sorry.”

 

They all started to him in shock, they couldn’t believe what they just heard, the tension was clear and visible in the air, even the twins were watching sacred in a corner, suddenly Blue Beetle took off his mask and started to laugh.

 

Everyone looked at him confused.

 

“Come on Richie! There’s no way! It’s too big of a coincidence!” Jaime said laughing.

 

“Jaime, hermano, I know this hard to take it, but...” Miguel tried to calm Jaime, but he cut him at mid-sentence.

 

“No! There’s no way it’s true! The fact that the two of us are dating and that they are ours! No way!” Jaime exclaimed.

 

“Fine you don’t believe me, read it yourself.” Richie said calmly before he clicked the keyboard and another file appeared.

 

‘Project: M2

Test subjects: Blue Beetle and Kid Flash

Powers expected: Super speed and biotechnology.

Results: Failure,

 

They could all read at the beginning of the document, then it started to talk about how the experiment came wrong.

 

“Oh dear God...” Jaime said as he buried his face in his hands, he wasn’t mad at anyone, he didn’t hate the boys, he just knew he may have to make a really big decision in a near future, so did Kid Flash.

 

“Look, I know this is hard to believe, but right now we need to know for sure the state of health of those kids.” Red Robin said.

 

Kid Flash looked at the twins, they were still in a corner near a window, watching everything, they were terrified, barely understanding what was going on, Kid Flash felt sorry for them, he knew by firsthand what it felt to be unexpected, and by second what it felt to be just a failed experiment, he walked slowly towards them, once he was one meter away from them he lowered himself to their level and took off his mask, the children didn’t make a sound, but their eyes widened when they saw Bart’s face.

 

“Hey, it’s okay, you did nothing wrong” he said smiling gently, the kids visibly relaxed. “How are you guys feeling?”

 

The boys were scared to talk, but when they felt the tension disappearing, they slowly recovered their confidence.

 

“Me..me duele un poco la cabeza..” (my head hurts a bit) Más said softly.

 

“Okay, does your head hurts too Menos?” Bart asked, Menos nodded softly, not daring to look at him in the eyes.

 

“I can check that out, if you want” M’gann offered.

 

“I don’t know” he said to her, then he looked back to Más and Menos. “Can she check out your heads?”

 

The twins took a second before nodding again. M’gann approached to them and placed her hands, first on Menos’ head then on Más’.

 

“They seem to have some sort of device in their heads.” She informed.

 

“I’ll take care of that” Richie said before approaching to them. The rest of the team left the computer area to go anywhere, leaving a freaked-out Jaime on his own. Bart took the chance snd walked next to him.

 

“Hey..” he called Jaime’s attention.

 

“Hey..” he said finally looking up.

 

“Sooo...” Bart said hoping for Jaime to finish.

 

“Sooo.. that just happened.” Jaime said.

 

“Congratulations, you just had two boys.” Bart ssid playfully hoping to light the mood, Jaime did snore a bit.

 

“Oh my, this isn’t how I was expecting how the mission to go” Jaime admitted, finally taking the courage to look at the children.

 

“I was expecting something similar actually, but I was also expecting a girl.” Bart joked, Jaime snickered.

“What’s gonna happen to them?” Bart asked suddenly dead serious.

 

“Well that depends on the league, them and, well us.” Jaime answered.

 

They suddenly were speechless, just staring at the children, this may change their lives a lot.


	9. What's going on?

Más and Menos couldn’t be more confused even if they tried, everything was happening so fast, one day, they were in a test lab running laps at super speed, the other they were on a space ship, with a green lady and six men that dressed funny, one of them looked a lot like them to make things worse. Don’t get them wrong they weren’t stupid, they knew the name of things and the meaning of words, even some math, but nobody cared of them enough to teach them how DNA works, or who were this people, or anything that could help them in this situation.

 

“It was a mind control chip.” The guy they remembered was called Richie said.

 

“It most has been connected to those earplugs” the man that they heard was called Kid Flash said.

 

“What earplugs?” The purple guy, they never heard his name, said.

 

“When they were chasing me, I noticed that they had these weird earplugs, I took them off and they woke up.” Kid Flash explained.

 

“Using mind control on children! That is sick!” The man, that for the them was the second most scary, said, he looked like he was on fire.

 

“Is there any chance that that are still being controlled?” The scariest of them all said, he didn’t look like he was the big deal, but he had a dangerous deadly glare, he was wearing all red, black and some yellow, and he never smiled.

 

“Not anymore, don’t worry” Richie informed him.

 

“Are they gonna be okay?” Mr. Jaime finally dared to speak, from all of the men Mr. Jaime was the most... interesting. maybe, he looked pretty scary with his blue mask, but he seemed to be more scared of the twins than they were from him.

 

“They’ll be” Mr. Richie said.

 

“I can sense their confusion, they are scared.” The green lady, they couldn’t remember her name said a bit worried.

 

“No es cierto!” (That’s not true!) Más said defensively “No le tenemos miedo a nada!” (We are not afraid of anything!)

 

“Okay, okay, we believe you, but, do you hace any idea of what’s going on?” The purple man asked.

 

Menos was going to shake his head saying no, but before he could his impulsive brother lied.

 

“Sí!” Más said determined.

 

“Really then you wouldn’t have a problem explaining it to Ronnie here, he’s kind of a thick head.” The purple man dared.

 

“Hey!” The fire man, Ronnie exclaimed offended.

 

Menos looked at Más worried, as if something bad would happen of they discovered that he was lying, Más frowned and looked at the men for a moment before sighing admitting defeat.

 

“No puedo” (I can’t) he admitted. “No entiendo nada.” (I understand nothing)

 

The twins looked at the floor and closed their eyes, they knew from past experiences that if a grown up caught you lying, something bad would happen to you, but they were shocked when instead of pain they felt something warm on the top of their heads, the slowly opened their eyes to find Kid Flash’s he lowered himself at their level and placed each hand on top of their heads.

 

“Hey, nothing bad it’s gonna happen to you, remember?” He said while smiling softly. “And don’t worry, we don’t understand everything either. Maybe we can help each other, okay?”

 

The boys nodded. Kid Flash removed his hands from the boys’ hair and sat in the floor with his legs crossed, he signaled the boys to do the same.

 

Once they were all in the floor, the twins glanced at the other men, Kid Flash got the message.

 

“Hey, I think I can explain the hole deal on my on.” He said.

 

“You sure?” Mr. Richie asked.

 

“Yeah! Don’t worry, I’m crash at explaining!” Kid Flash assured.

 

They all left to the computer area, it wasn’t the best privacy they had, but it was something.

 

Kid Flash looked at the boys and smiled. “Ask me whatever you wanna know.”

 

The boys looked at each other, they silently they decided that they will not let this chance go.

 

“¿Porqué se visten así?!” (Why do you dress like that?!)

“¡¿Cómo obtuvieron sus poderes?!” (How did you get your powers?!)

“¡¿Adonde vamos?!” (Where are we going?!)

“¡¿Qué paso?!” (What happened?)

“¡¿Qué nos va a pasar a nosotros?!” (What’s gonna happen to us?)

 

The kids asked historically, almost at super speed, even though Kid Flash was a speedster, spanish wasn’t his best subject.

 

“Hey, hey, slow down! Please! I’m not that good with spanish!” Kid Flash pleaded. The boys stopped talking. “Okay, we’ll have turns, first Menos, I’ll answer then Más, deal?”

 

The boys didn’t technically agree, but they followed the order.

 

“¿Quienes son ustedes?” (Who are you?) Menos asked.

 

“Mi nombre es Bart Allen, ellos son mis amigos, ya conocen a Jaime y a Richie, el de morado se llama Miguel, el que parece está en llamas se llama Ronnie, y el serio de rojo es Tim, y ella es M’gann.” (Mi name is Bart Allen, you already know Jaime and Richie, the purple one is called Miguel, the one that looks like he’s on fire is Ronnie, and the serious one in red is Tim, and she is M’gann)

 

“Pensé que tu nombre era Kid Flash.” (I thought your name was Kid Flash) Más mentioned.

 

“You didn’t let me finish, Nosotros somos súper héroes, cuando estamos en los uniformes que ustedes ven ahora, tenemos nombres, pues, de súper héroes, yo soy Kid Flash, Jaime es Blue Beetle, Miguel es Bunker, Tim es Red Robin, Richie es Gear, Ronnie es Firestorm y M’gann es Miss Martian.” (We are superheroes, so when we are in the uniforms that you’re seeing right now, we have names of, well, superheroes, I’m Kid Flash, Jaime is Blue Beetle, Miguel is Bunker, Tim is Red Robin, Richie is Gear, Ronnie is Firestorm and M’gann is Miss Martian.)

 

“¿Qué es un súper héroe?” (What’s a superhero?) Más asked again.

 

Everyone was left wide eyed, weren’t they supposed to be trained to eradicate superheroes?

 

“Somos las personas buenas, que quieremos ayudar a la gente, algunos de nosotros tenemos poderes, como yo, o simplemente saben pelear o son inteligentes como Tim.” (We are the good persons, we want to help people, some of us have powers like me, or some just know how to fight or are really smart, like Tim.)

 

“¿Así que, nosotros también somos superhéroes? (So, are we also superheroes?)

 

“Not quite yet, maybe when you’re older.” Kid Flash said with a smirk.

 

“¿Porqué nos salvaron?” (Why did you save us?) That question made Bart’s heart sank till the floor.

 

“Porque, ustedes parecían necesitar ayuda.” (Because you seemed to need help.)

 

Suddenly everyone grown quiet, the boys took a moment to meditate a bit.

 

“Can I ask you some questions?” Bart asked.

 

The boys nodded but didn’t looked at him, they were staring at the floor.

 

“How did you get to that place?” Bart asked.

 

The boys shrugged before explaining. “La señora mala nos metió en una especie de tubo un día, después todo se desvaneció, cuando despertamos estábamos aquí” (The mean lady put us in some kind of tube one day, then everything went black, when we woke up we were here.) Más explained, he was having trouble keeping his voice from breaking.

 

“How long have you known this mean lady?” Bart asked with certain regret.

 

“Desde.. desde siempre, en todos mis recuerdos esta ella, y las pruebas y.....” (since... since always, in all my memories she’s there, and the test and....) Menos tried to say, but his voice broke and his eyes criticized, now he was focusing in not crying.

 

Bart couldn’t help but feel guilty, it was that kind of horrible guilt that you get after making a kid cry, he pushed thing to far, he should have known where to stop.

 

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, she’s long gone, I promise” He said as gently as he could, silently praying that the boys wouldn’t realize that she was in the same ship just in another chamber.

 

Menos cleaned his nose with his selves and blinked tears away. “¿A dónde nos llevan?” (Where are you taking us?)

 

“To a safe place.” Bart answered.

 

“¿Qué va a pasar con nosotros?” (What’s going to happen to us?) Más asked.

 

“Nothing bad, remember.” Bart said, hopping that was enough answer, because honestly, he didn’t know.

 

Everyone was watching them with certain feeling of compassion, even though not all of them understood spanish, all of them got the idea that the poor kids were really worried, almost without a clue of what was going to happen.

 

The rest of the trip was awkwardly silent for some time, until Firestorm got the brilliant idea of showing Más and Menos how his powers worked, with Red Robin’s fighting staf, without his permission of course.

 

“You realise that once he finds out you’re bird food” Bunker said, yes it was a pun.

 

“Hahaha very creative Barragan. Would you relax, he won’t find out.” He said carelessly. Then he proceeded to demonstrate how the staf could be atomically transform into a toy plane, that did fly, into a train and a bouncing ball, everyone looked amazed, even the superheroes that scolded him had to admit that is was pretty awesome, but it was more awesome the flying kick that Red Robin gave Firestorm before demanding his staf back to normal. Everyone laughed at poor Firestorm.

 

“I just came off the phone with Nightwing. He aint happy.” Read Robin said.

 

“Maybe we shouldn’t return.” Bunker suggested.

 

“To late.” Miss Martian informed before the ship started to land.

 

“Kid Flash put on your mask.” Red Robin commanded.

 

Kid Flash did as he was told, the boys were starting at him while he did so, Kid Flash smiled at them, then they looked at the other superheroes, honestly the twins just needed to see that freakishly familiar face and those curious characters one last time to convince themselves that this may not be real, to not get their hopes up, because this might be some kind of dream, and when they wake up, they will be in a lab again. But they smiled back at Kid Flash, very slightly, maybe just maybe there was still hope.


	10. welcome to parenthood

They were taken by surprise by a man yelling.

“Early thirties, you people are in you early thirties and you blew up a lab on international land!” A masked man dressed in black with a blue bird in his chest exclaimed.

“Hey, being fair I’m on my mid-twenties.” Kid Flash tried to defend himself, but the deadly glare that the man sends him was enough to make him quiet.

“Lower your voice Nightwing, you’re scaring the kids” Red Robin said plainly. Nightwing didn’t take long before seeing to little six years old, hiding behind the heroes.

“Are those the subjects you talked about in the report?” Nightwing asked, Red Robin just nodded.

“Red, come with me.” Nightwing commanded before leaving, Read Robin soon followed.

Once they were gone, the rest of the metahumans released the breath the didn’t know they had been holding.

Blue Beetle was surprised when he felt a soft poke in his arm.

“¿Quién es?” (Who’s he?) Menos asked.

“Nuestro jefe” (Our boss) he said with an air of worries.

“Ohh” Menos understood. “¿Están en problemas?” (Are you in trouble?)

Blue Beetle smiled. “No mijo, no te preocupes.” (No son, don’t worry) He said before ruffling Menos’ hair, Menos giggled before removing Beetle’s hand.

“Good you’re finally accepting it.” Bunker whispered to Blue Beetle.

“What?! Shut up! It means nothing, all around the world’s population call the kids sons” Blue Beetle hissed back.

“Yes, and do you know who is included in that population? The kids’ parents!” Bunker sassed back.

“So the kids got your DNA, What’s so bad about that?”

Blue Beetle pulled Bunker with him to the corner of the room, where they couldn’t be heard.

“¡Hermano! ¡Muy apenas puedo mantenerme yo! ¡¿Quieres que mantenga a dos güercos?! ¡Y además speedsters! ¡¿Qué van a comer?! Y tendrían que vivir en mi apartamento ¡Necesitan espacio para correr! Y ¡La escuela! Y ¡¿Qué diablos se yo de ssre padre?! Y...” (Dude! I can barely maintain myself! Do you want me to take care of two kids?! And besides they are speedsters! What are the gonna eat?! And they would have to live in my apartment, they need space to run! And there’s school! And what the hell do I know about being a father?! And there is....) Blue Beetle panicked. Luckily Bunker got him to shut up.

“Güey, güey, hey ese! Relájate! Ya tranquilo. Okay, lo sé, sé que es aterrador y que parece difícil y que no estas preparado de ninguna manera, especialmente económica, pero eso es lo que menos importa. Mira en mi humilde opinión, tu serias un padre genial. Pero piénsalo, se que tomarás la decisión correcta” (Dude, dude, hey man! Relax! Stop worrying. Okay, I know, it’s terrifying, and that it seems that you are not ready in any way, specially economic, but that’s what matters the least. Look in my humble opinion, you would be a great father. But think about it, I know you’ll take the right decision) Bunker reassured before leaving, nobody heard the conversation.

Blue Beetle was left alone with his thoughts, and well, Khanji Da.

‘What do you mean about maintaining them?’ Khanji Da asked.

‘They’re ours Khaji, they have Bart’s, mine and somehow yours DNA’ Blue said.

‘I’m aware of that, I was there when the Richie Hawkins explained, but what does that have with maintaining the Más and Menos?’ Khaji asked.

‘Look, I don’t know if you have noticed, but when kids have someone’s DNA in their blood, it means that those kids are their sons, and if you have paid attention, my parents gave me and my sister a roof, a bed, love and education because we have their DNA in our blood, we are their son and daughter.’ Blue Beetle Try to explain.

‘So what you’re saying is, that the Más and Menos are our sons and we need to take care of them as so.’ Khanji paraphrased.

‘Exactly’ Blue confirmed. The scarab remained silent for a second.

‘Jaime Reyes we are not ready to have sons!’

‘Thank you!’

Even though it was nice to have someone to freak-out with, Blue Beetle couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his boyfriend playing tag with the children while the other three heroes tried to follow them with sight.

“I’m getting dizzy!” Firestorm exclaimed.

“Tag shouldn’t be allowed at that speed.” Gear said as he turned greener than his suit. Blue just laughed at them, before Red Robin came into the place with a deadly serious look.

“Come with me” he commanded, then he looked at Más and Menos. “You too”

The all followed him, the supers prepared for the scolding, the kids scared and worried, the nice moment was completely left behind.

They followed Red Robin into a windowless room made of metal and with a soundproof electronic door, inside Nightwing and Batman to everyone’s surprise were waiting for them inside.

“Red Robin and Nightwing told me everything.” He said as serious as always, then he looked at Blue Beetle and Kid Flash. “Welcome to parenthood.”

“What?!” Blue Beetle and Kid Flash exclaimed in unison, Más and Menos’ eyes widened.

“Do you think he meant it, or he just wanna watch them burn?” Firestorm asked Gear.

“Probably both” he answered.

“Wait a second!” Blue Beetle exclaimed.

“What?” Batman asked, suddenly Blue Beetle realized that he had no argument at all. “That’s what I thought, listen these kids are metahumans, they need a mentor and supervisory.”

“Okay! That we can do! But not parenthood! We are not prepared!” Kid Flash said.

“As you may know, I’m familiar with the parenthood topic, and I can guarantee, you’re never prepared.” Batman said, he may have thought it was reassuring but it was quite the opposite.

“He’s talking about you.” Nightwing whispered to Red Robin.

“We both know he’s talking about Robin” Red whispered back.

“True.” Nightwing said.

Batman cleared his throat to call Nightwing and Red Robin’s attention, the both got the message and shut up.

“You see! That that you just did! We can’t do that!” Kid Flash exclaimed.

“Well, if the kids don’t go with you they’ll be send to Star Labs. Your choice.”

Kid Flash and Blue Beetle looked at each other, then to Más and Menos, their eyes full with worry and fear.

“We need to speak to the kids alone”

Batman nodded and the door opened.

Kid Flash, Blue Beetle, Más and Menos got out to the empty corridor. Once the door was closed the kids and the grownups stared at each other for a while, before Kid Flash said.

“What do you wanna ask?”

“¿Ustedes....ustedes son nuestros padres?” (Are you...are you our parents?) Más asked shyly.

“Sí” Blue Beetle said.

“¿Porqué... Porqué...?” (Why...why...?) Menos really didn’t know what to say.

“Miren, ¿saben lo que es el ADN?” (Look, do you know what DNA is?) Blue asked.

“Los...los adultos de los laboratorios la usaban mucho esa palabra” (the grownups in the labs used that word a lot.) Menos said.

“Pero ¿Saben que significa?” (But do you know what it means?) Blue asked, the boys shaked their heads saying no. “Bueno, es algo así como instrucciones dentro de nuestro cuerpo que le dicen como verse, en nuestro ADN viene escrito nuestro color de pelo, piel, ojos, entre muchas otras cosas. Cuando dos personas con diferentes ADNs tienen hijos, los dos tipos de ADN se mezclan creando así unas nuevas instrucciones de como se deben ver los niños.” (Well, it’s something like, a set of instructions that say how we should look, in our DNA it’s determined our hair color, our skin color, our eyes color, among many other things. When two people with different DNAs have children, the two types of DNA mix creating a new set of instructions, that says how the children should look.) Blue Beetle honestly had no idea of how to explain DNA to a couple of six years old, but aparently it worked.

“Entonces ¿por eso nos parecemos a Bart?” (So, that’s why we look like Bart?) Menos asked

“Sí” Blue answered, kinda proud of himself for being a good teacher.

“Pero no nos parecemos a ti.” (But we don’t look like you) Más said referring to Blue Beetle.

“Actually, you have his eyes” Kid Flash said and smiled sheepishly.

“Miren sé que no nos conocemos, pero, la verdad es que no me gustaría que pasaran de un laboratorio a otro, independientemente de que sea Star Labs, así que, ¿Quieren darnos una oportunidad?” (Look, I know we don’t know each other, but I don’t like the idea of you going from one lab to another, even if it’s Star Labs, so, would you like to give us a chance?) Blue Beetle said.

The boy looked at them then at each other then they started to make faces and gestures as if they were having a telepathic conversation, finally Menos shrugged.

“Okay, pero con una condición.” (Okay, but with one condition) Más said.

“And What would that be?” Kid Flash asked.

“Queremos probar el helado.” (we wanna taste the ice cream.) Más said smiling exited.

“Mañana, luego se les sube el azúcar.” (Tomorrow, otherwise you’ll have a sugar rush.) Blue Beetle said. ‘And two speedsters in a sugar rush is the last thing I need in a one-bedroom apartment.’

“¡Hecho!” (Deal!) Más exclaimed.

“Crash!” Kid Flash said before knocking the door. “Open up!”

The door opened, inside the room everyone was hanging in the suspense, expecting to know the final desition.

“They’re staying with us!” Kid Flash announced happily. Everyone relised their breath.

“That’s great!” Gear exclaimed smiling.

“I knew you would pick the right choice!” Miguel said.

“Imma uncle!” Firestorm yelled.

The bats just smiled.

Suddenly Supergirl showed at the door. “Is it true?! Blue Beetle and Kid Flash had children?!”

Then Beast Boy. “Are there new super kids?!”

Then L’gann “which of them had the eggs?!”

Then Zatanna. “How did this happened?!”

“What the? How did you know?” Kid Flash asked shocked.

“M’gann told Superboy, then he told Aqualad, then he told me, then I told Zatanna.” L’gann explained.

“I read the post of Firestorm on Instagram.” Beast Boy said. “By the way, #Bluepulse family it’s kinda trending”

Blue and KF looked at Firestorm with a face that spelled ‘seriously?!’

“You post about this, on Instagram?!” Kid Flash said.

“Aammm... was I not supposed to?” Fire said.

“No! Didn’t a little voice in your head that sounded like an old academic man told you that it might have been a little inappropriate?!” Blue asked.

“As the matter of fact, he did, but then the likes and little hearts said otherwise.” Firestorm said. “But don’t worry! I post it on my @Firestorm-TheHeatIsOn account, only memebers of the league can watch it.”

“Oh great, so only the so hundred something of heroes and metahumans in the world can see it, including our families, which by the way, will be mad at us for not telling them first!” Blue Beetle was just a little angry, he was actually more scared about what his parents would say about having a family before marriage.

“Hey, they had to know about it somehow, I’m the somehow.” Firestorm tried to excuse himself with a guilty smile.

Blue Beetle just sighed as he heard Khanji Da’s suggestion of eliminating the Ronnie Raymond. While Kid Flash just smirked, already plotting his revenge, there’s a reason that those two were best friends.

“Let’s just go.” Blue Beetle said.

“Race ya!” Kid Flash said, before running ahead at super speed, the twins followed soon. It was Blue Beetle the one who had to take all the looks of the metahumans in the facility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey people! I hope this story isn't becoming teddious, or boring, I know I said I was gonna focous on Thad, and the other speddsters but give me some time man! you can't get to the top without climbing the mountain, any ways, I honestly really like this head cannon that Más and Menos are Bart's and Jaime's kids, I didn't invent it, it was swimming around in tumblr and I really, really hope you're liking the story so far, please leve kudos and comments! and lets hope season three of Young Justice comes soon.   
> Btw, today is el día de la independence! Viva Mexico! Viva Hidalgo! Y Viva America!


	11. Good night

Once in the city were Jaime lived, Jaime took off his armor reviling civilian’s clothes, while Bart took off his mask, he took some clothes that were behind a dumpster, and placed a hoodie and pants over his spandex.

“What are we gonna do about them?” Bart asked, the boys were still wearing the white suits with the symbols.

Suddenly Jaime noticed that there was a dollar store across the street, it was 8:45, so it was about to close.

“Look there, that will work for now.” Jaime said, pointing at the store. The twins were about to run off at super speed, but Bart grabbed their wrist.

“Wait no! We can’t use our powers without the a mask!” Bart exclaimed worried.

“¿Porque?” (Why?) Menos asked.

“Porque no” (Because no) Jaime said. ‘Oh dear God, I’ve become my mother’ he thought scared.

“Let’s go” Bart said, he let go of the boys’ wrists just to hold their hands, and crossed the street at normal speed .

They entered the store, inside, there was only the cashier that was working at the last shift. She was a fat lady with a ridiculously lousy makeup, it was more than obvious that the boys got a bit scared at the sight of her, actually Bart could swear that Más and Menos hold his hands tighter.

“Hey, do you have any hoodies?” Jaime asked .

“Yes, in the last alley, honey.” She said, with a heavily pitched voice, then she looked at Más and Menos, and gave them a smile that would leave the Joker in shame. “And who are this sweeties?”

Más and Menos flinched a bit and got closer to Bart.

“What? You little cuties don’t feel like talking?” She asked sweetly.

“They are just tired.” (So am I, it’s 3:00 am in here!) Bart said and smiled at her. “Come on, let's go boys.”

They went to the alley where the hoodies where and once there the twins looked at Bart waiting for him to let go of them, Bart got the message and once he let go the twins slowly started to observe the clothes, they have never seen any normal clothes that were meant for children, they have only see grownups in the lab wearing this kind of clothes.

“Pick what you like, it’s just for today, later we’ll get something, well not from the dollar store,” Jaime said.

The boys were wide-eyed, looking at the different hoodies, most of them had smiling faces and phrases like 2 cool for school, at the end Más ended up with a military hoodie that said the word ‘Rebel!’ and had the rebellion symbol of Star Wars, while Menos picked one blue with a ‘nerd’ emoji, they only showed them to Jaime and Bart expectantly.

They just started back, they were expecting for them to put them on, suddenly the look on the boys’ eyes started to become more worried as if they had just done something wrong.

“You can put them on.” Bart finally said, not really understanding what was the big deal.

The boys’ eyes glimmered before they put them on, at the first attempt Más place it the other way around, so the hoodie was in his face, and Menos got stuck trying to put his head on a sleeve. Bart and Jaime started to laugh.

“Hahahahahaha, sorry, sorry,” Jaime said, before helping Menos scape from the hoodie, he was starting to panic after all. “Arms up,” he said to Menos, he nervously did it. “It goes like this.” he said before helping him put on the hoodie, he was used to help his sister when she was little, so he was surprised when Menos winced and exclaimed ‘ow!’ more than one time. “I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?” He asked full of guilt and worry. Bart was also worried about the kid’s reaction.

But Menos, who first stared at his new hoodie, smiled slightly before looking at Jaime and shake his head in no.

“Okay..” Jaime said stranged before Más called his attention he also needed help. Jaime, even more carefully than the last time, helped Más to get out of the misplaced hoodie, and put it on correctly, but still, the little boy winced and groaned with pain. “Are you sure you are okay? Did you got hurt?”

But Más was more enchanted by the new piece of clothing than the fact that Jaime was worried about him.

“Honey! We are about to close!” The cashier lady yelled.

“¿Porqué a todo el mundo se les dice miel?” (Why is do they call everyone honey?) Menos asked Más, who just shrugged without looking up of his new hoodie.

Jaime sighed, he will let it slide, for now, he just ruffled softly the boys head, only then they looked up and smiled slightly to him, he smiled back. “Let’s go” he said. But before going to the cashier, he took a pair of shirts and two shorts, the same sizes as the hoodies.

Once with the cashier, Jaime said. “Just those two and these other four, please.”

The cashier smiled at Más and Menos. “Aaawwwww! Look at those cuties! You look so handsome!”

Más and Menos hide behind Bart, but he still said to the boys. “Where are your manners, say thank you to the nice lady.”

“Gracias...” they whispered but they didn’t fave the lady.

“What?” She asked, unfamiliar with the language.

“They said thank you.” Jaime said with a smile.

“Why, you’re welcome! That’ll be 20 dollars.” She said. Jaime gave her the money. “Why thank you, have a nice night!”

“Thanks, you too” Jaime said. “Come on, it’s already late.”

“Bye” the lady said.

“Bye” Bart said, behind his voice, Más and Menos whispered bye too.

* * *

 

It didn’t take them long to get to Jaime’s apartment, once he opened the door he was surprised that the kids were amazed by what he considered was the smallest apartment in the world. The first thing they did was run with super speed to the couch.

“¡¿Qué es eso?!” (What’s that?!) Más asked excited.

“It’s a couch” Jaime said while locking the front door.

“¿Para qué sirve?” (What’s it for?) Menos asked.

“To sit and to sleep.” Jaime answered.

The ran to the kitchen.

“¿Qué es esto?” (What’s this?) Más asked.

“The kitchen, and you can’t run in there, you may get hurt.” Jaime said.

The boys went out at normal speed before running to the bathroom.

“¿Qué es esto?” Menos asked, pointing to a closed door.

“That’s the bathroom, and you are about to use it, no offense but you really should shower.” This time Bart said. “You know how a shower works right?”

“Sí” Menos said, this time they weren’t lying, they used to have a shower at the lab.

“Good” Jaime said, before handing them each a shirt and a short he bought also in the dollar store. “you can use those for tonight, Bart you help them while I make dinner, please.”

“Sure” Bart said, he opened the bathroom door. “Okay, it’s not much space, but it works, there’s the shower, inside there is shampoo and soap, you can put your towel in that handle, and leave the dirty clothes in that basket.” He instructed while pointing at everything. “Why don’t you go first Más?” He suggested, somehow he was the one of the two of them that had gotten more muddy and dirty.

“Okay” he said lightly. “¿Me ayudas?” (Can you help me) He said referring to the hoodie, with the suits the scientists made them wear in tests, like the one he was wearing underneath the hoodie, he and his brother had no troubles, but normal civilian’s clothes were new for them.

“Sure” Bart said, deep down worried sick, he didn’t have younger siblings like Jaime before, at least he didn’t know he had, but still he helped the boy being as careful as he could, guilt emerged from him when the little kid winced in pain.

Still, Más smiled at him. “Gracias, lo demas yo ya puedo solo.” (Thanks, the rest I can do it on my own.)

Bart smiled, still filled with guilt, but he let the boy alone.

He took Menos to the small living room, and turned on the TV, mesmerized was short to the expression that Menos made when the device showed the colorful cartoon of teenage mutant ninja turtles (the first season, the rest ain’t so colorful ;() Bart smiled, he let the amazed boy sitting on the couch and went next to his boyfriend.

“This ain’t so hard! It’s almost like when I used to watch Milagro when she was eight.” Bart said.

“Yes, you know, one-night babysitting, a lifetime of parenthood, what’s the difference?” Jaime said sarcastically as he chopped vegetables.

Bart frowned. “Yes it’s different, all I’m saying is, it may not be that bad.”

Jaime thought for a moment, he looked at the completely distracted Menos in front of the TV. “Okay maybe it seems easy now, but we can’t have the TV as a babysitter, also we’ll have to train them sooner or later, and they’ll have to go to school, not to mention that we haven’t even named them.”

“Yeah right, how do you wanna name them?” Bart asked.

“I don’t know, how do you wanna name them?” Jaime asked.

“How about.... no.... okay for now that topic is moded.” Bart said. “What are you making?”

“Pasta, lots of it, who know since when those two poor things haven’t eat.” Jaime said. “Hey, wanna think about some more moded topics? How are we gonna explain this to our families?”

Bart’s eyes widened. “Uummmmm...”

“Yes that’s what I thought too” Jaime said.

Suddenly the sound of water dropping called their attention, the turned around just to see Más with his new clothes on, but his semi-long hair was soaking wet.

“Did you dried your hair?” Bart asked.

“Uummmm..” was all the boy could answer.

Bart rolled his eyes, he ran for a towel, in less than a second he was next to Más who winced and flinched as if he was about to be beaten.

Bart was stranged by this, but still he ruffled the boy’s hair with the towel as careful as he could, once he was finishing and he looked at Más, he gasped in horror, everything was clear, now with the short sleeve shirt and the shorts Bart could appreciate all the bruises and scratches in the boy’s arms and legs, some of them looked very old for being from the landing of the explosion.

“Jaime. Jaime! Come here!” Bart called.

“What is it?” Jaime asked before looking at the numerous bruises in Más’ skin. “O, dear God. “

The boys suddenly had an expression in their faces that showed more than fear, they were frightened, both of them expecting the worst. Jaime noticed this and tried to reassure them.

“Menos, porfavor métete a bañar” (Menos, please go shower.) he said in a gentle tone, Menos obeyed as fast as he could, which made Jaime’s stomach sink even more.

“Más, mira, ¿no quieres ir a ver la tele?” (Más, look, don’t you wanna go see the tv?) he said, slowly guiding Más to the coach. Más sat there and stared at the Tv, first he was really scared, but somehow the colors in the device calmed him down. Bart and Jaime stared at him from behind, worried sick expression, suddenly Bart signaled Jaime to go to their bedroom, once in there the closed the door.

“This shouldn’t happen.” Bart said, his eyes started to crystalize. “I came here to stop this from happening.” His voice started to crack and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“No, mi amor, please don’t cry.” Jaime whispered, before wrapping Bart in a strong hug. “Please, you could scare the kids.”

That didn’t stop a silent sob from Bart.

“I know, I know you hate these things, and that you came from a horrible place to stop them from happening, but we can’t control everything sweetie, you already know that.” Jaime said gently while rubbing his hands up and down Bart’s back, he knew he wasn’t reassuring but he was being honest.

Bart sobbed softly one last time, and nudged Jaime’s shoulder before breaking the hug, he dried his tears with his hands. He knew Jaime was right, yes Bart had been more than disappointed when he discovered that the 21sth century wasn’t the utopia that Max described as a bedtime story when he was a kid, he was more than shocked when he discovered that there were worse people than the supervillains, and he was terrified when he got to the conclusion that he was in love with the person he once swore in front of his family to hate and fight until dead.

“I love you.” He said completely out of topic, almost reassuring that the best decision he has made in his ‘new life’ wasn’t a mistake. Jaime smiled fondly at him.

“I love you too.” He said honestly. “And right now, I need you to be strong, those kids out there are really frightened, their lives were completely changed without warning, they need to know there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Bart said, cleaning his face with his hands one more time. “Let’s go.”

“Hey wait!” Jaime called his attention.

“What?” Bart asked, he was surprisingly happy when Jaime kissed him softly in the lips, he smiled at him goofily, Jaime smiled back.

“Now we can go.”

Once outside they found that Menos was already out of the shower, unlike Más he did dry his hair, and he was now sitting next to his brother, watching the TV.

“I’ll go finish dinner.” Jaime said. “Can you watch them for a little while?”

“Okay.” Bart said softly before Jaime left to the kitchen, Bart slowly walked towards the couch, once there he noticed that the faces of the children had puffy eyes and silent tears were falling down their cheeks, he gasped, calling the twins attention, their faces were still full of fear, Bart sat next to them, and tried to clean the tears in Menos’ cheek, but when the boy noticed that the hand was coming near his face his first instinct was to flinch away, when he did that Bart retrieved his hand immediately. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.” Then he tried again, this time Menos didn’t move, Bart dried his tears with his thumb carefully, just then he really looked at the kid.

When Bart was a kid, there were no mirrors, so the only way he got to know his own face was looking at Thad, the first memory he had of him was when they both looked seven, when he remembered that, he noticed that both of the kids’ faces fitted almost exactly with his memories, Más and Menos had the same freckled face, with the same features, the only thing that differentiates them were their deep dark eyes, their hair, that he just noticed was a little bit redder than his, and the fact that their skin wasn’t completely pale, but had a trace of a bronze color tan, probably also Jaime’s influence, but besides that, it was like looking at a window in the past, a window he had been trying not to look at for the last ten years. Still, he smiled fondly at Menos before removing his hand and proceeded to do the same with Más, they soon stopped crying and stared at Bart, who smiled sweetly before asking. “What are you watching?”

Más sniffed and cleaned his nose with his hand, before answering. “Unas tortugas peleadoras..” (some fighting turtles.)

“The Ninja Turtles? I love that show!” Bart said, before turning around to see said show, he frowned slightly . “But it’s about to finish.” He said with a bit of disappointment, almost in cue one the scene frozen and became a sketch. “I know what we can see! The road to el Dorado!” Bart exclaimed. He grabbed the control and change the TV to Netflix.

The boys watched amazed as Bart played the movie, but almost as in cue Jaime said: “diner’s ready!”

“Oohhh.. well, we’ll watch it later.” Bart said as he got up from the couch and went to the kitchen. “Let’s go, aren’t you hungry?”

“¡Muchísimo!” (A lot!) Más exclaimed, he jumped off the couch and went to the kitchen, soon followed by Menos.

Once in the kitchen Jaime asked Bart to set the table who did happily, when everything was set, Jaime placed a pot with approximately three kilograms of spaghetti with tomato sauce. It wasn’t necessary to say that they ate everything, between Bart, Más and Menos eating like it was their first and last meal and Jaime eating like he usually does, all the food disappeared in a a matter of minutes, there wasn’t any real conversation during dinner, none of the speedsters stopped for it, but once they finished the twins ran to the couch.

“¡Pon la tele!” (Play the TV!) Más pleaded exited.

“Okay, okay, just give me a minute” Bart said as he grabbed the control and put Netflix.

“Put it in spanish!” Jaime said, as he cleaned the table and washed the dishes.

“Okay, here we go!” Bart said before clicking play and sitting in the couch next to the twins, a little while after the movie started the boys started to giggle at the jokes of Tulio and Miguel, Bart smiled, he was glad they were happy, when Jaime finished he sat on the opposite side of the twins, Bart was next to Más and Jaime was next to Menos, sometime later the boys started to laugh a bit louder, even Bart and Jaime started to giggle at the jokes, by the middle of the movie they were all laughing out loud, and during the climax Más and Menos were gasping, and once the movie ended the kids’ expressions were priceless, but it was 10:15 pm.

“Okay, that’s it, it’s time to go to bed.” Jaime declared as he get up the couch.

“¡No! ¡¿Qué pasa después de wue escapan del Dorado?!” (What happens when they escape el Dorado?!) Menos asked desperate.

“¡¿Qué pasó con Tzekel-Kan?!” (What happened to Tzekel-Kan?!) Más asked.

‘The Spanish conquest the land, kill part of the natives, and slaved the rest.’ Jaime thought to himself, but of course he wasn’t going to reveal the horrible truth. “They live happily ever after, having a lot of adventures, and the Spanish found nothing and returned to Spain, where they put Tzekel-Kan in prison.”

The twins seemed happy with this explanation. They smiled before yawning, it was more than obvious they were already tired.

“Come up get up the couch” Jaime instructed. “Bart, I believe there’s a package of new toothbrushes under the sink, can you help them, please.”

Bart, who was already falling asleep, got up from the couch. “Sure. Let’s go kiddos” he said as he walked towards the bathroom.

Más and Menos followed sleepily, once there he gave one toothbrush to each of them and took the chance to brush his tooth himself, after him, the boys mimicked his movements, learning for the first time how to do it.

“¡Wow!” Más and Menos exclaimed when they saw that the couch was now a queen sized bed, with pillows, sheets, and everything.

“There we go, all ready.” Jaime said as he finished to make the bed.

“¡¿Vamos a dormir ahí?!” (Are we gonna sleep there) Menos asked excited.

“Yes, it’s all yours, just please don’t jump in it.” Jaime answered.

Still, the boys jumped to it, the had never seen a real bed before, they had always slept in a capsule.

Bart and Jaime smiled at their excitement for little things.

“Come on it’s time to go to bed.” Bart declared. He and Jaime put them into bed, Jaime ruffled the kids' hair, they smiled at him.

“Sleep tight.” Jaime said, smiling back. “We’ll leave the bathroom lights on, and our door will be open.”

After Jaime pulled away from the boys, Bart stroked their hair and then he descended to their cheeks. “Sweet dreams” he said softly before a wave of nostalgia hit him, there was something familiar the way he stroked the boys’ hair, suddenly he remembered, that was the favorite way of his mother to show affection, still he kept the feeling down and smiled before letting go.

They were about to leave to their room, but Más called their attention.

“Señor Jaime, señor Bart, gracias.” (Mr. Jaime, Mr. Bart, thank you.) he said before finally closing his eyes.

Bart and Jaime went to their room, they closed the door to change into their PJs, and after that, they opened it again, as they promised.

“You see! Easy!” Bart said as he gets in the bed.

“Aha, I wanna hear you saying that when they are teenagers.” Jaime said sarcastically.

Bart snorted and rolled his eyes. “Shut up.” He said jockeying as he hit Jaime with his pillow.

“Fine, fine.” Jaime said in defeat. “Descansa, mi amor”

“Good night sweetheart,” Bart responded, they kissed goodnight and fell asleep exhausted.

It had been a good day, so it was more than a surprise that Bart’s nightmares returned.


	12. Wake up!

Bart opened his eyes, he was at the top of mount justice,  and he saw the worst thing he had ever seen, the Reach's ships, entering to earth's atmosphere.

"No! No!" Bart yelled in horror before he ran at super speed, he needed to get the other members of the league, another metahuman willing to help, the army, anyone. 

But as he was running, a blinding light flashed in front of him, he covered his face and of course he stopped running, he stumbled a little, but he didn't fall, he slowly opened his eyes and once he recovered his sight he saw a horrible memory he had been trying to avoid since forever.

* * *

 There was a small house, completely in ruins, the windows and the door were covered, so no one could see what was inside, but there was a peek hole in a window, and Bart looked even though he knew what was going to happen, inside he saw some adults but the only ones that called his attention were two grown ups, an old man with gray hair, he was slender and had wrinkles in his face, his name was Max, the other one was a young woman, she was beautiful, at least in Bart's opinion, she had brown hair and wasn't really tall, Meloni, Bart's mother, in a near corner next to the adults three pre-teenagers were listening to them talk, in dead silence and very unlike childish expressions, one of the youngsters was a girl, she was dark skinned, had black hair and dark brown eyes, Jeni, Bart's immediate cousin next to her there was a boy who looked just a little bit Younger than the girl, he was blond, and had an almost worring pale skin, which only made two yellow eyes stand out of his freekled face, Thad, Bart's twin brother, and next to him was Bart himself, trying his hardest to not be scared, they were all wearing those awful gray uniforms. The Bart of now knew this was all a dream, a cruel joke of bad taste that his brain was playing.

"You speedsters may be the last of your kind, you may be the last metahumans in the world, besides that unstable atomic bomb, there for the key to save humanity." A faceless agent said. "This fight may be the one that determines our future."

Bart remembered that day, he started to hit the window, to knock the door and to yell at the top of his lungs. "GO! GO! GET OUT OF THERE! MOM! THAD! THEY'RE COMING! THEY'RE COMING!"

But he no one listened, he didn't exist in there.

"JENNI! MAX, RUN! RUN AWAY!" 

but instead of saving them, he watched in horror as the Reach agents broke into the house from behind, without previous notice, with them evil Blue Beetle was waiting outside. The chaos was legendary, enough to traumatize Bart the rest of his life.

"BART! PLAN B!" The dream version of his brother yelled at the dream version of himself while fighting the grip of a Reach soldier.

"NO! I'M NOT GONNA LEAVE YOU!" His dream version yelled back, as backing off from the fight.

"WE'LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU! RUN!" 

Bart knew this was a lie, he knew, but still, he ran, and miraculously he escaped.

"NOOOOOOO!" The real Bart yelled before the scene was destroyed by a blinding light.

* * *

Another horrible memory, the time he and Thad got captured during a patrol of the resistance and had to spend three days in a work camp before they could escape. And the scene his memory choose was depressing, they looked ten years old at that time and they both had shovels in their hands, they were digging as they planned how to get out of there, the real Bart saw all of it through the other side of a grid, suddenly the scene glitched, instead of him and Thad the two captives became Más and Menos.

Bart gasped, suddenly the two kids looked directly at him with hurt eyes before another blinding light changed the dream.

* * *

 It was minutes after they were discovered, his past self was on top of Mount Justice were an old Nathaniel and a time machine awaited. 

Nathaniel was talking to him, something about this trip being a crazy idea, and only being a one-way trip. 

his old self remarked, but he was honestly putting more attention to what was happening under Mount Justice. Once he saw a distant light explosion in an area that used to be his HQ he said. "Time to get in character"

He entered to the time machine and left, without waiting for anyone, without looking back.

The real Bart fell on his knees and started sobbing, all the pain and the emotions he felt during those times came back as a kick on the stomach, he hid his face in his hands.

* * *

 The sound of thunder and static encourage him to look up.

"What the?" was the only thing he could mutter.

Bart found himself somewhere that was nowhere, there were bright warm colored lights and lightning, the place itself looked like chaos, but at the same time peaceful.

Bart got up and ran, he wished he hadn't as he ran, he saw the specters of other people running beside him, he stopped abruptly and looked to every direction, in the distance he found a silhouette, it was a man who looked as if he was sitting on a table, he looked more carefully, it was the one and only Wally West, who appeared to be having a conversation with imaginary people. 

"Wally? WALLY?!" Bart yelled with a feeling between excited and mortified. But Wally didn't even notice him.

Bart ran to him as fast as he could, but it was in vain, the closer he got the farther the man got.

 He ran but he stopped when the figure of his cousin disappeared into thin air. 

"Whaa..?" Bart looked around there was nothing except flashes of lightning until suddenly the bagged silhouette of his Mother running, then the mirrage of Jennie, walking at normal speed, she looked like she was talking to imaginary people, she became more real, she walked some meters in front of him.

"JENNIE! JENNIE!" He yelled and tried to reach her, but just when his hand was mere inches away from her she disappeared.

"What?" Bart was completely confused, he wanted to cry again out of pure desperation and confusion. 

Suddenly a far point in the distance appeared, looking more carefully he discovered that it was Thad, he was sitting on the floor, pretending to read a book.

"Thadd?" he asked softly, before running at top speed to him, but as the last time the more he ran the further he got. "THADD! THADDEUS THAWNE-ALLEN!" he screamed.

for his surprise, Thadd did look up of his imaginary book. "Bart?" he asked softly with a puzzled look. 

for the first time in this whole experience, Bart felt hope, that didn't last long.

* * *

 

Bart woke up gasping, hot tears falling down his cheeks, he's been crying while dreaming. He panted a few times, before looking at to his side, Jaime was still deeply sleeping.

'I...I need some fresh air..' He thought, carefully and without waking Jaime he got up of the bed, he put on a hoodie and slowly left the room, in the living room, Más and Menos were soundly asleep, Más was stretched out at ease, while his brother huddled close to him, Bart smiled. Suddenly Menos started to gran and to kick in his sleep, looks like he wasn't the only one with bad dreams.

"sshhh, it's okay, it can't hurt you" Bart whispered as he stroked his hair to ease him, careful to not wake him up, it was a lie, because if something that his nightmares always dis was hurt him, still the boy seemed to relax in his sleep.

Bart let go and as silently as he could, he opened the door and locked it behind him, what was supposed to be a minute outside taking fresh air became a run around the neighborhood, then it became a run around the city, around the state, he ran to Mount Justice, to the changing room, to his locker, then he stopped, he opened his locker and took out the burden that was killing him, the picture.

That picture was taken with a camera he built himself, with some help of Thad of course, when he was just eight years old, he always had it with him in the old future, it gave him hope, now it only gave him pain and nostalgia.

When he was 14 Bart used to dream what would have happened if he stayed, what would have happened if he fought with them, the most scary dreams were of him and his family were slain by the Reach, but it was worse to dream that if he had helped they would have won, because it was those dream that only left guilt the next morning.

Bart cried, looking at the picture near to his locker he sobbed silently, hoping no one could hear him, he decided to destroy the picture, to move on, he was starting a new family after all. Bat the moment his hand started to do said action he sobbed harder and stopped before there was even a rip in said picture. He couldn't he just couldn't.

Instead, he saved the picture in his pocket and ran back home.

* * *

 

Bart was careful to not make any sound as he opened the door.

"Good evening" Bart jumped and almost screamed at the soft voice of Jaime coming from an armchair in the living room. "Or shall I say, good morning? It's 4:00 am."

Jaime looked angry and puzzled, still, Bart just wanted to run at him and cry in his shoulder, but the boys were still asleep on the couch.

Jaime's look softened when he saw that Bart had been crying. "What happened?" he asked softly and concerned. Bart got next to him and hugged him, he managed to smile before whispering. "shhh, you'll wake the kids."

Bart left a really confused and concerned Jaime behind as he walked into the bathroom where he cried a little more.

* * *

 

No one could have known that Jay Garrick woke up at the same time that Bart did, also gasping.

"What happened?" his wiffe asked sleeply 

"It's the speedforce.."he answered. "something's gonna happen..."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DRAMA!! Dun dun dun hope you like it! I really appreciate your support, your comments, and your kuddos and your hits, they encourage me to keep writing. So there you go! Thank you people!


	13. Where am I?

"Bart?" A man that looked 23 years old asked confused to the thin air, he was reading a book and sitting on the floor, before a faint whisper distracted him.

He got up and looked around the room, it was nothing special, just gray room with bunk beds and a closet, the window was finally unblocked tough, he looked outside, where the grass was finally beginning to grow, there was no one.

'Where did the sound came from?' he thought, looking around a little bit more before opening the door of the room and yelling. "Bart, are you home?! Jennie?! Max?!" but there was no answer. Unsatisfied with the results he used the only thing he got to bring from the 30th century, at plain sight, it looked like a simple watch, but in reality, it contained his Inertia suit and also.

"Craydl, please call Bart." Thad requested to his friend.

"Sure" The AI replied, some beeps were heard before another voice was heard in another line.

"Hello?" Bart's voice was heard.

"Bart, are you okay?" Thad asked a bit concerned. 

"Crash bro!" Bart answered excited, Thad sighed relieved.

"Where are you?" Thad asked.

"With Max, helping people." Bart answered.

"do you need help?" Thad asked.

"No, don't worry, you rest, you deserve it." Bart declared.

"Okay, come back soon?" Thad asked.

"yes, love ya! Bye!" Bart's voice echoed through the communicator, Thad couldn't even reply before the connection broke.

"love you too.." he whispered to empty static.

He sat in the floor again an opened his book, without looking he flipped the page and then he started to read, but he started frowning at mid-page. 

'Haven't I read this before?' he asked himself. 'Wait! When was the last time I saw Bart?!'

* * *

 Bart got out of the bathroom at 7:00 am and tried for a while to avoid Jaime doing several quiet things in the apartment like cleaning or mopping, which was really hard because even though Jaime didn't ask any questions, his gaze was burning a  hole through his skull. Finally, at 7:45 he dared to take Jaime into their room and ask.

"Are you mad at me?" He asked already waiting for the worst, Jaime sighed.

"I'm not mad at you Bart. It's just, I'm just confused and worried, this is so unlike you, running away in the middle of the night, you haven't done that in a long time, and not only that, this whole day, you've been reacting weird, avoiding topics, why? what is it? is it me, are you mad at me?" Jaime asked concerned.

"what? No!" 

"Is it for the children? Is this the way you're 'digesting it'? Do you think this wasn't a good idea after all?" 

"No. I would never..." 

"Then what is it, Bart? Please tell me." Jaime begged.

Bart thought for a moment, he knew screwed up and that he needed to tell Jaime the truth, but still, why? He wanted to move on, to not let any of this emotions invade him again, and the worst way to do that was talking about it. 

"Bart, you know your secrets keep you sick." Jaime said. Bart sighed.

"I..I miss.." Bart couldn't finish, because a soft noise of crying was heard through the door.

'Oh dear God, we woke them up.' Bart thought, suddenly the whole matter was forgotten, Bart and Jaime bolted outside the room into the living room, where Más was curled up and crying, next to him Menos was starting to wake up.

Without thinking, Bart sat in the edge of the bed before wrapping his arms around the boy, at first the boy tensed up, but after some seconds he relaxed and started to cry louder in Bart's shoulder.

"shhh, it's okay, it's okay..." Bart whispered as he rubbed the boy's back.

"¡No! ¡No! ¡No quiero regresar!" Más' screams were muffled in Bart's shoulders.

"shhhh, no, you'll never go back sweetie, you'll never go back." Bart reassured him hugging him tighter, slowly Más wrapped his arms around Bart. 

By now Menos was wide awake, just watching in silent, terrified, he winced when he felt a hand in his shoulder, but he relaxed when he noticed it was Jaime's, who smiled slightly, Menos couldn't return the smile, Jaime wrapped his arms around him, hugging him from behind, Menos was completely tensed, but he turned around and buried his face in Jaime's chest and wrapped his arms around him, not wanting to face his brother while he was crying, Jaime rubbed the boy's back. 

The sad atmosphere was broken when someone's stomach growled. Menos let go of Jaime started giggling, then Jaime, then Más giggled between sobs and finally, Bart started giggling too, letting go of Más who sniffed and cleaned his cheeks with his hands, Bart stroked Más' hair.  

"How about some breakfast?"Bart asked the boys nodded. "Jaime, can you make us breakfast?" Bart asked with a sheepishly smile.

"What the? Why me?" Jaime asked raising an eyebrow.

"Because I don't know how to make pancakes." Bart explained. 

Jaime just rolled his eyes and grunted before going to the kitchen.

"I'm guessing we're not doing anything today?" Jaime asked from the kitchen.

"No." Bart answered as he collapsed on the bed.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Bart noticed that the kids had nothing to do. 

'I think Jaime has some games in his phone' Bart thought. "Jaime, please lend me your phone?"

Jaime, who was beginning the pancake mix, stopped for a moment. "Sure" Jaime said before taking his phone out of his pocket when he unblocked it he was shocked. '23 missed calls, 90 WhatsApp notifications, from almost everyone he knew, the ones that called the most were Milagro and Tye, and some other friends that weren't on the missions, like Virgil, Paco, Eduardo, etc, etc, thankfully, his parents didn't call him, if he was lucky enough Milagro would not alarm them, he ignored them and unblocked his phone. "Here" Jaime said extending his phone to Bart, who took it at superspeed, he opened the Angry Birds App and gave it to the twins. "There you go." He said before showing them how to play and let them try it.

The boys were enchanted with the game, they were sitting on the bed with crossed legs, Bart collapsed to the bed once again, the soft sound of the game and the smell of pancakes was enough to make him sleep.

* * *

Richie woke up not only because of the sun coming through the window, but also the soft sound of conversation coming from downstairs, slowly he opened his eyes, he noticed that his glasses were gone. 'Virgil' he thought, slowly he got up and took his glasses from the nightstand, he put them on and proceeded to go downstairs.

Step by step the sound of voices became louder.

"Wait so you're telling me, that you think that the Fortress of Solitude is better than the Batcave?!" Virgil's voice was heard. "No way!"

"Yes way!" The voice of a young boy was heard. "Superman has all this tech from outer space! Batman doesn't!" 

"Batman does! He haves more technology from outer space than from earth!" Virgil remarked 

"Maybe, but, Superman has a portal to the phantom zone!" 

Richie finished walking down the stairs and smiled at the scene, his husband and his son Alex, a little dark-skinned boy with short curly hair, were sitting on the couch in front of a long-forgotten TV that was showing the Saturday special of the looney tunes.

"You two are wrong" Richie called their attention as he finished walking to the couch. "The best HQ ever is the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude." 

"And he lives!" Virgil mocked with a tone that was taken directly from the Frankenstein movie while extending his arms in front of him in a zombie-like way. Alex giggled but covered his mouth to not be discovered.

Richie smirked. "Shut up!" he said before kissing his husband's cheek, then kissing his son's forehead. "Good morning baby."

"Morning dad." Alex replied still giggling.

Richie sat between Virgil and Alex. "So, what's for breakfast?" 

Suddenly Virgil looked at him in a mischievous way. "I was thinking, maybe we could go out."

"That sounds good, where?"Richie asked giving his husband the benefit of the doubt, but Virgil's smirk became wider.

"To...I don't know, maybe... Jaime's place?" Virgil admitted, then he smiled innocently. Richie sighed.

"What did you heard?" He asked the same way he asks Alex what did he do, whenever he electrified something by accident. 

"I heard nothing!" Virgil exclaimed throwing his hands up defensively.

"good."

"But I read something, somewhere in Instagram..." Virgil said starting to smirk again.

"Virgil..." Richie said rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Richie, please! I need to know what happened on that mission! And Jaime nor Bart answered my calls!" Virgil exclaimed exasperatedly.

"I can tell you what happened on that mission." Richie informed.

"I know that and I love you." Virgil said before kissing Richie's face, too close to his mouth. "But Richie I need to see them."

"See who? What happened on that mission?" Alex asked.

"There's a rumor of new meta kids!" Virgil said to Alex. "and I want you to meet them!"

"Wha!? Why?!" Alex asked confused.

"Because they may be your new teammates!" Virgil exclaimed, then he gave Richie a look, Richie knew what he meant, they both knew that Alex didn't have so many friends, as the matter of fact, he didn't have any friends at school, he always excused himself saying that all the kids at his school were mean, and they believe him, but still a kid needs friends. "So, now we all agree we're going!"

Richie thought for a second. "Fine! but just for a little while."

"Great!" Virgil said, not even a second passed, he took out his cellphone. "Yo, Tye, yes is me, yes we're going, pick us up in 5!"

"10!" Alex said.

"10!" Virgil corrected.

"Wait! Tye is going!?" Richie asked surprised.

"Yes! And not only he, we're all going! And I mean all of us!" Virgil exclaimed.

"Virgil..." Richie said facepalming himself.

"Let's go! Get ready!" Virgil urged them

"Okay, okay, let me just hand Alex his.."

"No, no, no, I've been practicing that trick that pops taught me! Look!" Alex stopped him

"Are you sure? the last time you tried, you got a bloody nose?" Richie asked worriedly.

But Alex ignores him as he used a small purple lightning to attract a couple of crutches that was sitting on a far corner in the living room, the crutches advanced slowly, unlike other times, and Alex grabbed them successfully after few seconds, then he proceeded to use them to help his stand up. 

"Ta-da!" Alex said adjusting the crutches under his armpits.

"Not bad at all" Richie said, still prepared to help Alex at any moment.

"Does that means I get to go to patrols now?" Alex asked full of hope, but his parent's shaken their head in no slowly.

"you know the deal, you start with small stuff when you are 17 like we did" Richie said.

"fine." Alex groaned, as he slowly turned around and started to get upstairs. It was only when he started to walk away that you noticed how small the boy was for being almost 6 years all, he didn't look like a baby, but he looked so small and fragile, especially from his legs, they weren't disproportional to his body, but still they looked as if they were about to break at any time.

"You know we started with a load of crap when we were 15" Virgil remembered Richie while side hugging him.

"I know, but do you want him to start?" Richie asked him.

Virgil looked at his baby and smiled sadly. "No, never." He kissed Richie's cheek. "let's go, the guys will be here soon."

* * *

"Breakfast's ready!" Jaime's voice was what woke Bart up, he slowly opened his eyes and smiled seeing the kids still playing Angry Birds. He slowly got up and when the boys weren't expecting it he tackled them.

"Raaawr!!" He yelled as he tickled them.

"¡No! ¡Hahahaha! ¡Ya!" (No! Hahahahaha! Stop!) The boys yelled while laughing hysterically.

Jaime giggled at the scene, but still, he managed to said. "¡Se les va a enfriar!" (it's gonna get cold!)

"Hahahaha, okay okay, we're going" Bart said letting go of the kids. 

The boys ran at superspeed to the kitchen, where what seemed a billion pancakes awaited, While Bart took off the bed and make the couch, then he went to the kitchen.

Because anyone could start eating the doorbell rang. The twins ran at super speed into the room, scared by the sound.

"Who could it be at this hour?" Jaime asked himself, before opening the door. 

When Jaime opened the door the last thing he was expecting was his 9 closest friends and his nephew to be outside saying: "Hello!"

"What are you guys doing here?!" Jaime asked shocked.

"Well, since apparently some of us weren't invited to the baby shower, we decided to come to visit the babies!" Francis said.

Jaime rolled his eyes. "Okay, great, so despite inviting yourselves to my humble home, did you planned something else."

"Am actually, most of us haven't eaten yet, so...." Eduardo admitted.

"Uh, yes we could use some breakfast!" Asami said while rubbing her 8 months pregnant belly.

Jaime snorted. "You guys are unbelievable. Come on get in" 

They all got inside and somehow managed to be comfortable in Jaime's small living room.

Bart handed them all dishes with one pancake. "There you go! But I'm not doing the dishes!"

"Yes you are! I did them yesterday!" Jaime replied as he sat next to Edwin, who instead of starting to eat like everyone else, took the opportunity to ask.

"So, we know what happened in Mexico, Richie, Miguel, and Ronnie explained in the way here, but what's up with the kids?" He asked turning to face Jaime who arranged his thoughts before saying.

"They're ours, DNA, cloning what are you gonna do?" Jaime said nonchalantly, honestly, he was already warming up to the idea.

"Are you seriously going to keep them?" Tye asked in disbelieve.

"We're not gonna 'keep them' they're not stray puppies! We're gonna raise them!" Bart corrected him.

"Sorry, sorry, my bad." Tye apologized. "It's just that, it's such a big deal! I mean, I always knew you'll marry and have a baby, but this just happened so suddenly!"

"I know, but what other choice did we have, send them to Star Labs?" Bart asked rhetorically, still, they all answered.

"Oh, heck no! that place was horrible!" Eduardo answered.

"Yhea no kidding!" Tye exclaimed.

"Running away from there was the best decision we made, over an ocean of terrible decisions." Virgil declared.

"Yes, that's not a good place, especially for kids." Asami agreed.

"Speaking of little kids! Where are the little Más and Menos?" Miguel asked.

"Más and Menos, are those really their names?" Eduardo asked in disbelieve.

"ergh, more like their nicknames, until ergh... we decide how to... name them." Bart admitted.

"What you haven't named them yet!" Ronnie asked shocked.

"Okay, you posted this on Instagram, you don't get to talk." Bart declared, Ronnie only smirked and rolled his eyes.

"still, we wanna meet them!" Asami said excited, and you never deny anything to a pregnant woman, so Jaime went to the closed door of his room and knocked.

"Niños ¿Pueden salir, porfavor?" (Kids can you come out, please?) He asked, two loud 'no' were heard through the door. "¡Porfavor! ¡Ustedes ya conocen a esta gente!" (Please! you already know these people!) well most of them, still the boys refused to leave the room, suddenly Jaime got an idea. "¡Se va a acabar la comida!" (The food is ending!) and the door opened, it seems that all speedsters have the same weakness, who knew?

Más and Menos ran at superspeed to the kitchen where they grabbed two plates and like 10 pancakes, ignoring the people in the living room, and tried to eat at the same speed, but all the gazes in the room got them nervous and they slowed down.

"Wow.." Eduardo whispered while smirking.

"You weren't kidding when you said you said they were the mini replica of Bart." Francis commented to Miguel.

"Told ya!" He replied.

Más and Menos who had their mouth full gulped and ran to hide behind Jaime. "Hey it's okay, don't worry, look, you already know Richie, you remember him right?" Jaime asked Más glanced at Richie behind his hideout and nodded. "And do, you remember that guy that looked as he was on fire? The funny one? That's him" He said pointing at Ronnie, both of the kids glanced at him and frowned in confusion, who they remembered, being a fire being was now a really normal guy, with raven short hair and caucasian skin, the only thing that could make him extraordinary was the fact that he was muscular and buffy, actually all of the men in the room, even though they had different complexities,  seemed to work out a lot. They didn't believe Jaime when he declared he was Firestorm. "¡No es cierto!" (That's not true!)

"They say they don't believe you're Firestorm." Jaime informed.

Ronnie gasped like the drama queen he is. "I am offended that you kids don't recognize me!" he said turning around dramatically, the twins giggled.

"Okay te creemos" (Okay, we believe you) Menos said, after hearing his voice and seeing his reaction, they did believe him.

"And that man over there, he's the purple one, Bunker." Jaime said pointing to Miguel, he didn't look that different his goatee was a complete giveaway. 

"Hey! What did I tell you about calling me 'The purple one'?" Miguel warned, but they all laughed at him and he laughed too.

"Hahaha, okay and the rest.. That's Virgil over there, next to him is Edwin, those over there are Francis and Eduardo, and those last two are Asami and Tye." Jaime said pointing to each respectively.

"Ahem, aren't you forgetting someone uncle Jaime?" Alex called his attention, he was sitting on the armchair next to the couch, crutches resting next to him.

"Oh yes, sorry! Kids this is our wonderful and for now only nephew, Alex." Jaime said introducing him.

"Hi" he waved to the boys.

"Hola." the said back shyly.

"Do they speak any English?" Francis asked.

"No, they only understand it." Bart informed.

"They are so cute!" Asami exclaimed. Más and Menos look at her, wide-eyed.

"¿Qué se comió?" (What did she eat?) Menos asked Jaime.

All the spanish talkers snorted, before laughing hysterically.

"What did he said?" Asami asked, shaking her husband's shoulder. 

Tye may no be completely fluent spanish, but still, he picked up some things at Del Paso. "Hahaha, he said... Hahaha, he asked, what did you eat?" 

Now everyone was laughing, even Alex was laughing. Asami smirked and rolled her eyes. "You're all going to hell." she said, pointing to all the grown-ups, then she looked at Más and Menos. "No sweeties, I... I have a baby in here." She said rubbing her belly.

"¡¿Qué?!" Más and Menos yelled and ran into the kitchen. They all laughed again. 

"You're so mean!" Asami accused the men. "No sweeties! I didn't mean it like that!" 

"Hahahaha, I'll go for them." Bart said, but Virgil stopped him.

"No wait, why don't you go and eat with them?" Virgil asked Alex. 

"But... " Alex tried to complain.

"Come on, you'll be more comfortable eating on the table." Virgil argument, he was right.

"But..." Alex still tried.

"Alexander..." Virgil gave him the look, Alex groaned slightly but obeyed.

Once Alex went through the door, Richie called Virgil's attention. 

"Does our kid knows any spanish?" Richie asked Virgil, the realization sank a little too late.

* * *

"Hey..." Alex said softly as he entered the kitchen, he walked and sat on the chair, he rested his crutches on the edge of the table. "Aaammm.. can I have some breakfast please?"

Más and Menos were hiding under the table. 

"¿Estás solo?" (Are you alone?) Más asked.

"What?" Alex didn't understand. 'My father just have the best ideas.'

Más rolled his eyes, once he confirmed they were alone, he served Alex a pancake, and he served him as his brother the rest. They started eating quietly, it was awkward, even more, when Alex noticed that the Más and Menos were eyeing his crutches.

"What?" He asked. 

"¿Qué son?" (What are they?) Menos asked, talking slowly, hoping he was understood. 

"Okay, I understood 'qué', the 'son' does it means the same it means in english?" Alex asked. 

"¿Qué?" Más asked, not quite understanding what Alex asked.

"What?" Alex was confused, even more than when the coach tried to explain baseball to him, why you have to stop running if someone catches the ball?. "Okay listen, go over there and ask one of your fathers a cellphone." 

Más and Menos looked at each other and frowned then they looked at Alex an pointed at him. "Tu!" (you) they tried to make him understand that they didn't want to.

"I can't, well I can, but I don't want to! I already sat, and getting up is hard!" Alex excused.

Then Más crossed his arms. "No!" 

"Come on, please?!" Alex pleaded.

Menos put his hands in his belly then he 'expanded' it, and made a scary face.

"Wiat you really think she ate a baby?!" Alex asked in disbelieve.

The twins nodded.

"No way! She just has a baby inside her because the stork gave her a magic seed that she ate and it's growing in her belly, one day when the baby it's ready the doctors will take it out." Alex explained the same way his fathers explained to him. It was needles to say that Más and Menos were understanding nothing.

Alex sighed. "Look, we are not going to get anywhere if you don't get that cellphone!" Then he smirked mischievously. "Or are you too _scare_ to go?" 

"¡No!" Más said while frowning and crossings his arms once again. "¡Mira!" He then held his brother's hand and ran to the living room. Once in there, they noticed that all the grown-ups were laughing, Más poked Jaime´s arm and called his attention.

"What is it?" He asked gently.

"¿Nos prestas tu celular?" Menos asked softly.

"What for?" Jaime asked curiously.

"O yes! We forgot that our kid ain't bilingual." Virgil admitted.

"We forgot?" Richie asked sarcastically pointing out that it was Virgil's fault.

"Yes we, you marry me, you go down with me." Virgil said, Richie smirked and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, here, this is his, you can use this, I believe it has a translator," Virgil said, handing the twins one of those kid's tablets. But Más and Menos were too afraid to take it.

"Come on." Virgil said gently. Jaime tugged them gently encouraging them to go with Virgil, it was reasonable that the boys had trust issues, but they needed to start working on it, and the small things, like going near someone instead of fleeing, might help. Still what started as a slow approach of the boys ended up in them graving the tablet at superspeed and fleeing into the kitchen.

"Well, they sure seem to like me." Virgil commented sarcastically.

"Give them some time, they have been through a lot." Bart said. "They barely speak to us." 

"Yeah you're right. So, are you seriously thinking of staying here, with those two little speed demons?" Virgil said changing the topic. "You said that this place was unbearable for a speedster, and maybe they are small now, but they'll grow up." 

Bart sighed. "I know! But we don't have the money to afford a suburbian house like you!" 

"Well maybe you do." Richie said. Bart and Jaime looked at him confused. "You see, in the neighborhood we live in, mostly old people live in there, and they want it to be a 'family place' so when they discover that you have children they are pretty generous if you know what I mean."

"It's true, once we were visiting these guys, we went to an open house, and the hose was big, I mean it was no mansion but it wasn't that small either when the lady that was selling the house saw that Asami was pregnant she lowered the price like a bit more than 25%."  Tye agreed.

"That actually sounds like a nice deal, but you said it yourself, only old people live in there, aren't they a bit... you know, racist and homophobic?" Jaime asked.

"Not really, not only white elders live in there, but also black elders, and most of them are like you know curious about how the world has changed, so the most awkward thing would be when they have 'a gay question' and yes some of them are homophobic, but they live up to the statement and avoid you at all cost, plus since they're pretty old we can say that all the 'electricity problems' we're having are due the light company, and they don't doubt it." Richie said. 

"Mmm, that doesn't sound bad."Bart said "You know when I or the kids run outside, we could just say like, ma'am you must be tired, or I'm sure it was only a raccoon."  

"Yes, but even with the discount a house is a lot of money." Jaime said

"Well there's always Wayne Industries, you know the guy help to pay the education of almost every member of the Young Justice League." Eduardo reminded. "Bet he won't mind buying one lousy house." 

The adults were submerged in their own conversation while inside the kitchen the children were having their own meeting.

"Cool, you got my tablet!" Alex said as he turned on and opened Google's Translator. "Okay now say something:" 

"¿Hola?" Menos said shyly, in the tablet almost immediately the word (Hello) appeared.

"Wow!" All of them exclaimed it was the first time they used the translator.

"So what did you asked me before?" Alex asked.

"¿Qué son esas cosas?" (What are those things?) Menos asked pointing at the crutches.

"Oh those? Those are my crutches, they help me to stand up and walk." Alex explained nonchalantly like he was used to. 

"¿No puedes caminar?" (You can't walk?) Más asked. Alex shook his head saying no.

"Perdon." (We´re sorry.) The twins said honestly and ashamed.

"Don't worry," Alex said, and he meant it. "So what do you like to do?"

"Nos gusta ver la tele." (We like to watch TV.)

"Really? I like to watch TV too. What it's your favorite thing to watch?"

"¡El camino al Dorado!" (The road to el Dorado!) They both said excited 

"I haven't watch it!" Alex admitted.

"¡¿Qué?! ¡Pero si es muy divertida!" (What?! But it's so funny!)  Más declared. Then the twins proceeded to explain the movie to the african-american child, who just laughed and giggled between the expressions of the brothers, the mistakes of the translator and the moments were that twins words matched or contradicted each others. The read heads told Alex how was it like to run at super speed and how gross it was to catch a bug while doing so.

Then Alex explained to them how it was like to be a real boy, how it was to have toys, to eat candy and he left a very bad reputation to school and showed them a small purple lighting dance in his hand, the read heads listened and watched amazed and they smiled and laughed with him, somehow they knew this was the beginning of a new friendship.

* * *

 

 Thaddeus was passing around the room, with an anxious step, he stopped reading after some minutes of reflecting what was going on.

‘When was the last time I ate something?!’ Thadd thought worriedly. ‘When was the last time I got out?!’

He was starting to have a panic attack.

  
“This is ridiculous! I need answers!” He declared out loud. “Craydl! Call Bart again!”

  
“But you just talked to him...” Craydl said confused.

  
“Call him, please!” Thad said determinedly.

  
Thadd waited impatiently until Bart picked up on the other line.

  
"Hello?" Bart's voice was heard.

  
"Bart, are I think something weird it’s going on!” Thad exclaimed.

  
"Crash bro!" Bart answered excited, Thad frowned angrily.

  
"This is not the time for games Bart! Where are you?!” Thad asked.

  
"With Max, helping people." Bart answered.

  
"I need to talk to you ASAP! This is important!” Thad said, almost yelling.

  
"No, don't worry, you rest, you deserve it." Bart declared.

  
"What no! Bart tell me that you’re on your way!” Thad demanded.

"yes, love ya! Bye!" Bart's voice echoed through the communicator, Thad couldn't even reply before the connection broke.

  
‘Argghh!! Fine!’ Thad thought angry. Once again he was left alone with his thoughts. After a while reflecting a horrible realization hit him. ‘That conversation was way too familiar’ 'Oh dear God, where am I?"

 

 

 

 


	14. Let's start

Maxwell Crandall aka Max Mercury was sitting legs crossed, hands on his knees straight back and eyes shut till a point it looked it hurt, he couldn't open them, he didn't want to open them, otherwise, he would fall to all the lies of that place, a place that he knew way too well, and he had certain mixed feelings about that place, from one hand that place was a part of him, an important part of him, from the other hand, that place was playing dirty tricks to his poor old mind, that place was the speed force and it was driving him crazy. 

He was trying to focus, to block out the sounds, the voices, that he heard around him.

"Max look what I did!" The familiar sound of 13-year-old Bart was heard, he sounded excited like he was expecting Max to be proud of him. Max had to shut his eyes harder.

"Max! Bart is bothering me!" That was the voice of little Thad, he obviously was expecting Max to stop the fight. Max turned his head away. 

"Max, can you help me please?" The sweet voice of Jennie asked him an unknown favor. Max had to block it all away.

'It's not real! It's not real!' Max repeated in his brain constantly, he tried to wander in his own mind, he almost didn't have any memories about his life before he entered the speed force, he didn't remember how long he had been there, but he remembered everything the hallucinations said, he decided that today was an easy day, night? who knew, the point was that other times the kids weren't saying typical day stuff, other times they were screaming, asking for help, saying that the HQ was under attack, those were the worst.

He was determined to not open his eyes because if he did, he would lose all the memory of the life that was left on him, he would lose the track of reality and believe that this twisted version of heaven for speedster was true. 

'It's not real! It's not Real!' Max kept thinking.

"Thad! Thaddeus Thwane-Allen!" 

'What the?!' Max thought shocked, that voice, it was Bart's voice, but it was different, not only it wasn't addressed to him, but it was way deeper, all the time he has been here, Bart's voice never changed.

He almost didn't open his eyes, almost, when he opened he found the chaotic peace of the speed force, warm yellow lightning around and everything, for him, that wasn't new, he used to visit this place through meditation before, what did call his attention was the man standing like half a mile in front of him, Max immediately recognized him, it was Bartholomew Henry Allen, how couldn't he recognize him, he practically raised that boy, but he seemed different, he was taller, he was wearing a plain hoodie and pants, he remembered the voice that woke him from his denial, suddenly it all clicked, he was older. 

Max looked at him with perplex eyes, he was deciding whether or not to believe what he was seeing before he could decide a bright light make the man disappear.

 "No! Wait!" he yelled, standing up in the process, but he was too late. 

"Maxwell Crandall, you need to accept that your time has come." A mixture of voices said calmly. 

"No! No!" Max yelled scared, he didn't want to forget, but the lights and the chaos blurred away to be replaced with the image of a room, it was a simple room it was gray, and it had metallic bunk beds, inside Thad was reading on the lower bed, Bart was playing with the only toy they had, a small toy car, and Jennie was sitting on the floor tracing drawings with her finger. It was her the one who looked at him. 

"Hey, Max, why do you look so sad? The Reach are gone!" Jennie said smiling. The two other boys looked at him happily too. Max looked down at the floor, not ready to face them.

"Max, when is mommy coming back?" Bart asked innocently. 

"I'm sorry" Max murmured before sitting again on the floor and shut his eyes again. 'This is not real... This is not real...' 

* * *

Más, Menos and Alex were laughing at the video of baby shark (They are six years old!) while the adults were still talking in the living room. By this time the plates of pancakes were forgotten.

"So how are you guys doing with the 'metagene research'?" Bart asked to Edwin, Francis, and Richie.

"Great actually." Francis admitted. "All those kidnappings and artificial awaking of the gene were horrible, but after Young Justice saved the kids, all of them helped a lot with understanding the metagene." (What I believe is gonna be season 3)

"Hey is it too soon to ask you to run some tests on your kids?" Edwin asked sheepishly. 

Bart and Jaime glared at him.

"I'll take that as a yes, it's too soon." Edwin answered is own question. 

"It's not really that bad, just some blood samples and monitoring while training."Richie added.

"Have you done it with Alex?" Jaime asked, frowning.

Richie nodded. "Yeah" he said calmly. 

"And what did he thought about it?" Jaime asked, curiously. 

"Well, Alex has to go through a lot of tests per week, he thought it was just another day in the doctor." Richie admitted. 

"You see, I don't think Más and Menos will think the same way, they are kinda afraid of Doctors and labs." Jaime admitted. 

"Yeah I know, I was there, those so-called scientists were horrible." Richie said.

"But they don't matter anymore, they are locked away in the Justice League main prison." Bart said, more like wanting to convince himself than his friends. 

"True, they won't see the sunlight again in a long time."  Eduardo agreed. 

"So let's talk about the important stuff." Tye said, then he looked at Jaime with a serious face. "When and how are your parents gonna kill you?" 

Jaime scoffed and rolled his eyes, the rest laughed softly, except for Bart who actually believed that Jaime's parents were about to disinheritance him. It was not a secret that Jaime's conservative Catholic parents, who came from the third most homophobic latin country, were not happy when he came out as bisexual and announced that one of his best friends was actually his boyfriend, his abuelita almost had a heart attack, but they somehow accepted it, they didn't understand it, they didn't really like it, but they loved Jaime and they really liked Bart, so they accepted it. But having a family with another man, worse, having a family without being married, Jaime was practically begging to be killed. 

"Don't mess with that! You may summon them." Jaime said massaging his temple.

"Sorry, sorry, but hey maybe it won't be that bad." Tye comforted him.

"You think? Hey ma, hey pa, you know how you asked me to give you some time to accept this gay relationship thing? Well, I hope you're over it already because you're abuelos!" Jaime said sarcastically, most of his friends snorted. "Don't laugh I'm serious! They are gonna deport me back to Mexico! Or disown me! Or both!" 

"Relax, I'm sure it won't be that bad, they love you" Asami assured him. 

"Yes but..." Jaime wanted to keep arguing, but the kids came out of the kitchen. "Hey..." Jaime tried to deceive the previous conversation. "Did you boys finished eating?" 

"Yes" Alex said happily, while Más and Menos just nodded.

"Oh my God, they're so cute!" Asami exclaimed.

Alex instead of using his crutches had each arm around Más and Menos' necks, who were holding his Alex's back. Alex smiled widely. "We are friends now!" 

Más and Menos were the same hight, but Alex was like a head shorter than them, because of that Alex almost wasn't touching the floor. 

"Smile!" Virgil said before taking a picture with his smartphone, they did smile, the twins more shyly than Alex. 

Miguel looked at the kids more closely.

"Is that from the dollar store?" He asked.

"You try to go shoping at 9:00 pm!" Bart protested. 

"Chillax bro, I'm just asking." Miguel said innocently.

"Sorry, it's just too much! The names, the inlaws, the Allens and the Garricks, the clothes, the house..." Bart was exhausted only by thinking about it. But then he looked at the kids, they seemed confused, they didn't understand a word of what Bart just said, Bart smiled at them. "Maybe we can start by getting new clothes, and some ice cream."

For the first time, the twins smiled widely in front of the strange adults.

"¿Puede venir Alex?" (Can Alex come too?) Menos asked.

"Can Alex come too?" Bart asked to Virgil and Richie.

"He haves some homework" Richie teased, Alex's smile dropped immediately.

"I'll do it when I get back I promise!" Alex said.

Virgil and Richie looked at each other, then at Alex, they smiled.

"Of course you can go baby!"  Richie said, happy about the fact that his son had friends. 

"Yes! thanks dad, thanks pops!" Alex exclaimed, smiling widely again. 

"But, you gatta behave." Virgil remembered him.

"Sure"

"And do not separate from your uncles." Richie reminded.

"of course"

"And don't talk to strangers" 

"Okay pops"

"And..." 

"People, if we wanna go shopping we gotta start to get ready!" Bart interrupted. "Get out of our house" Bart urged them.

"Will, you at least let me finish?! Don't go to the restroom without announcing one of your uncles, don't lose your crutches and no powers, deal?" Richie said.

"Said and done!" Alex exclaimed. 

"Okay, now we can go." Virgil said. "Bye son" He said before ruffling the boy's head. "Bye Más, bye Menos." he said as he patted the boys' shoulders. 

"Bye pops" Alex said.

"Bye kiddos." Richie said.

One bye one the grownups started to leave the small apartment. 

"Okay, now, we're going to get ready, in the mean time you boys can keep playing." Jaime said.

The kids happily did what they were told, prociding to play Minecraft on Alex's tablet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive!!! Thanks for all the hits!!! I gotta do homework!!!


	15. What a nice day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> may or may not start to swear a bit from now on

Thadd was freaking out, his eyes were so wide they almost came off his face, he just couldn’t understand, what was happening? What was going on? He was passing fastly around the room, he wanted to run, that wasn’t like him, he didn’t like to run unless it was necessary, running for clearing the head was Bart’s thing, but now, Thadd felt like giving it a try, unfortunately, the strange situation had other plans. Every time Thadd tried to get out of the room, he would get in instead, get it? Like there was no way out, instead of going outside the room he would enter it. The worst thing was that it took Thadd like 10 minutes and like 20 trials to even notice it.

“What the hell is going on?!?!” Thadd yelled to no one in particular, calling for help was no option, he tried to call Bart over and over, but the same prerecorded message answered, still he tried anyway. “Craydl! Call Bart!”

“Yes, sir.” Craydl was so afraid of Thadd’s behavior he didn’t hesitate.

“Hello?” What seemed to be Bart’s voice asked.

“Bart! Our mother doesn’t love us!!” Thadd said smiling like a psychopath.

“Crash bro!” Bart answered, it didn’t make any sense, the real Bart would have screamed furiously at Thadd after a statement like that.

“Are you getting high with someone?!?” Thadd asked playfully, smile getting wider.

“With Max, helping people.”

Thadd snorted, he already knew the answers of the horror answering machine by memory.

“Hey I was thinking that I should create the cure for cancer and restore this planet, while dressing up as a clown, What do ya think bro?!”

“No, don’t worry, you rest you deserve it”

“THE COW SAYS MOO!!” Thadd practically yelled to the communicator.

“Yes, love ya! Bye!” That was it. The communication cut and Thadd was alone again, was he ever accompanied?

“This is it Craydl, I have gone insane.” He declared, his lunatic smile slowly being replaced by sad eyes.

“Why don’t we call someone else?” Craydl carefully suggested. Thadd sighed.

“Oohh for fuck's sake, why the hell no? Call Jennie.”

Craydl did, but it the other line was plain static, it gave Thadd the creeps.

“Call mother! I’m just that desperate...”

The same result.

“Why not? Call Max.”

This one was different, at the beginning it was also plain static, but when Thadd listened closely, he could hear a voice, Max’s voice saying over and over again.

“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not...”

“Max!! MAX!!” Thadd tried, but the connection shut.

That was the scariest thing Thadd had lived in a long time, slowly his eyes began to fill with warm tears, he suddenly wished someone was there to comfort him, he had only cried in front of Bart before, once or twice he shared a tear with Max, but now he would have accepted anyone.

“Bart, Jennie, Max, mother, where are you? Where am I?” He started talking to himself again. “What’s going on Craydl?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know Thaddeus.” Craydl said his words filled with sorry for the young man.

* * *

 

Jaime had the biggest migraine he has ever had in his lifetime, everything was fine, the car ride to the mall was kinda relaxing, helping Alex with the crutches didn’t take that long, the twins stayed closer to him, actually, they were so afraid at the beginning they were grasping his hands as if their life was up to that, but then Bart had the smart idea of giving them the ice cream before they even started shopping. Needless to say that kids and sugar are a dangerous combination, speedsters kids and sugar, was the only thing that you needed for starting the apocalypse.

“¡O Dios mio! Más no!” Jaime yelled before he ran to catch said child before he dived into the mall’s fountain. “You can’t dive inside the fountain!”

“¡¿¡Porqueeeeeeee?!!” (Whyyyyyy??!!) Más whined as he squirmed under Jaime’s embrace.

“¡Por que no niño! ¡Las fuentes no son para eso!” (Because no kid! Fountains are not for that!)

He then carried Más, where Bart was struggling to keep Menos’ wrist hold, next to him, was a very amused Alex watching the match.

“¡Yo quiero ir a esa tienda!” (I wanna go to that store!) Menos practically demanded, Bart sighed and planted his feet more in the ground. Menos was pointing to the colorful toy store that was just some meters away.

“No till you calm down!” Bart declared Menos was really strong for a kid that small.

Jaime rolled his eyes as Más squirmed more and pushed Jaime’s chin away.

‘Jaime Reyes, the Más is attacking us, I suggest non letal defense mechanism.’ Khanji da said, honestly the scarab freaking out was the last thing Jaime needed right now.

“If you must know, I blame you for this.” Jaime declared to Bart.

“Me!? Why me?!” Bart asked offended.

“We should have let them have the ice cream in the car when they were tied up.”

Bart wanted to protests but when Menos literally let all his weight on freefall while still hanging from his hand, Bart found himself agreeing with Jaime.

Several moments stud like that, the boys grunting and squirming trying to run away. Suddenly out of nowhere, the twins practically melted, no energies left, the sugar rush was finally over. Jaime and Bart allowed themselves to smile.

“What?! That was it?!” Alex asked expecting more from the twins, but the glares his uncles gave him was enough to make him take that back. “I mean, hurray, they calmed down!”

Bart looked at Menos who was now lying on the floor, looks like having a fast metabolism wasn’t so good after all. “Aaww, come on.” He said before picking the kid up and holding him the same way Jaime was holding Más, Menos instinctively wrapped his arms around Bart’s neck and let his head rest on Bart’s shoulder. “Let’s go shopping for clothes and maybe later we’ll go to the toy store, kay?”

Menos nodded his head sleepy.

“But no more ice cream! Nor candies.” Jaime said.

“Are they gonna wake up?” Alex asked a bit worried since his metabolism was normal he had never experienced or seen a sugar rush like that, nor the abrupt ending.

“Sure they will, but let’s just enjoy the peace while it last...” Jaime said while caressing and patting Más’ back he remembered that’s what his mother used to do when she wanted Milagro to go to sleep, the kid snuggled closer and snored softly. ‘Thanks heaven’

“Come one Al, we gotta start now if we wanna be done before the stores close.” Jaime said, somehow managing to hold Más with just one arm and place the other hand in Alex’s shoulder slowly guiding him to the nearest clothe’s store, Bart walking beside them. Más’ hold became tighter. ‘This is gonna be a long day, isn’t it?’ Jaime thought, still he smiled softly.

‘Negative, this day will last the same amount of hours like the others.’ Khanji Da informed him.

‘Oh believe me Khanji, it will not feel like any other day.... not anymore..’ Jaime affirmed and nuzzled Más’ hair.

The rest of the day was a bit calmer, the twins woke up ten minutes after the sugar rush and they immediately started to play and laugh with Alex, even though the couldn’t communicate with words they created their own language that consisted mostly of fart noises, funny faces and giggles, while Bart and Jaime were talking to the assistant buyer, the kids were busy sitting beside them on one of those couchy benches and playing their version of tag, practically they had to poke each other’s belly, but they were allowed to block the hand away, so far Menos was winning, only being poked once by his brother. The assistant buyer glanced annoyed from time to time and sighed as she pointed to the aisle where the clothes of the twins’ size were. “There you go.” She said shortly.

Jaime and Bart didn’t mind her. Jaime told Bart that it was better if he got the clothes because he got better taste, while he stayed and kept an eye on the children. Bart agreed.

In less than a minute Jaime was sucked into the game, then he taught them a Mexican hands game named “la oca” (it’s hard to explain, it’s like duck duck goose but with the hands and without running.)

“Okay redy, here we go. Este es el juego de la oca que te pega y no the toca, corre que te pega, corre que te toca con la punta del za-pa-ti-to a-zu-li-to..” Jaime sang as he played, he couldn’t finish the song, because Bart appeared with what seemed to be a thousand clothes. “Didn’t you forget anything?” Jaime asked sarcastically.

“They’re just ten outfits, but they are multiplied by two.” Bart said. “We better get started.”

They all went to the changing room, luckily it was one of those big ones with cubicles and benches and mirrors.

Alex and Jaime sat as Bart helped the twins with the outfits. Most of them were polo shirts, T-shirts and jeans.

They liked most of them, but Jaime put his foot down in some of them, especially in with he called the red fiasco, a red polo shirt, and red jeans, on redhead kids, heck no.

“Why not?” Bart asked.

“Because they look like ketchup bottles.” Jaime said making Alex laugh.

After like 20 minutes, they decided to buy six outfits for each, including the one they were wearing, Bart wanted them to use the same outfit but Jaime opposed. “Telling them apart is hard enough already.”

“Easy, the gaps in their teeth are different.” Bart defended.

“You realize we’ll have to get them braces when they are older right?” Jaime asked.

“Why?! They look cute that way!”

“Sure they look cute now, but they won't when they’re our age.”

“Fine...”

  
Bart smiled and looked at the kids, they were walking like a meter in front of them, Más was wearing a space shirt and jeans, while Menos was wearing a polo shirt with baby blue and gray stripes with jeans.

By now the kids had already eaten pizza and ride the carousel in the middle of the mall, they were smiling widely and the adults couldn’t help but let the enthusiasm in too.

They were letting the kids lead the way to the toy store, a deal is a deal after all, and after the ice cream incident, they all had been little well-behaved angels.

When they entered the toy store Más and Menos looked amassed, they tried to run to see it all but Alex yelled: “hey wait up!” And so they did, the kids looked around slowly with Jaime and Bart close behind, testing every toy they could reach and asking for Bart and Jaime’s help when they couldn’t reach something. The kids wanted everything, unfortunately, nothing was free and having already spent most of their money in clothes Bart and Jaime could only afford a box with 8 toy cars that the three of them would have to share, luckily the children didn’t mind a bit, they loved it anyway.

When they were in the line for paying Bart looked at the window of the outlet, in there he saw the people passing by, but then he looked closely at his reflection, it seemed weird, then he started to realize, was he blond? And why was he looking at him that way? His thoughts changed when Más pulled his arm asking him to carry him, he did so, once the boy was secured in his arms he tried to look again at the strange reflection, but it seemed to be normal now, he didn’t mind much, once again he was distracted this time Más was poking his cheeks and telling him that his face looked weird.

“No your face looks weird, yours is green.” Bart said playfully.

“¡No!” Más said giggling.

“Are you sure?” Bart asked before spinning around while carrying Más, the kid laughed more. “Now you do look green.” He said smiling widely.

* * *

 

Thadd was starting at the window stupidly, for a moment though, he could have sworn that his hair turned brunette-red.


	16. Moments like this

When they arrived home it was just a bit depressing that the clothes bags took most of the space in the living room, it was sadder when they realized that they didn’t have anywhere to place said clothes, and the saddest thing was that the three kids had to play in a corner surrounded by stuff.  
  
The desition of moving was definitive the moment the twins decided that the toy cars needed to move at super speed, some minutes after Alex left with his parents, they decided that the car races would be more fun if they were “faster”, they broke a vase, a picture frame of Jaime showing his diploma next Bart and his family, and the bathroom mirror, Jaime and Bart still couldn’t comprehend how the hell they did that but they did it.  
  
“I don’t care if we are left in debt for the rest of our lives, if we keep them here they’ll destroy the place.” Jaime said, not really mad at the kids but annoyed.  
  
“Agreed.” Bart said, he just stopped the children from their 20th lap around the apartment, they were back in the corner again.  
  
“We’ll look for new places tomorrow.” Jaime offered.  
  
“But we’ll miss church.” Bart said tomorrow was Sunday after all. “We were going to go with your parents, remember?”  
  
Jaime sighed, Bart was right. “I’ll call Milagro to tell her we’re not going.”  
  
“Good luck with that” Bart huffed.  
  
Jaime took out his phone and called Milagro, as the beeps sounded he was freaking out, thinking about how his sister will react and what should he say.  
  
Before he thought what he was going to say his sister answered.  
  
‘Hello?’ Milagro’s voice was heard on the other line.  
  
“Uh hi Mili...”  
  
‘YOU SoN Of A...!!! I hAvE BEen CaLLinG YoU ALl NIGhtd AnD All MOrnInG! NOw YoU AnsWeR!?!?” Milagro yelled angrily.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Jaime apologized.  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re ‘sorry’!! Explain to me what the fuck is going on!!!” Milagro demanded.  
  
“What have you heard?” Jaime asked.  
  
“Dude I got on into the gossip late, all I got was something about clones Blue Beetle and Kid Flash, do you have clones now?!?!” Milagro urged.  
  
“Sort of, it’s....I can’t tell you...” Jaime sighed. “Not yet... I need to tell mamá and papá too.”  
  
“Maldito, pendejo....” (you damn, a-hole) Milagro cursed him before sighing. “Fine, then, why the heck did you called me?”  
  
“I need you to tell mamá and papá that we cannot make it to church tomorrow”  
  
“Why can’t you make it?”  
  
“It’s part of the secret”  
  
“Will you tell me sometime?!”  
  
“Uhhmmm does next weekend works for you?”  
  
There was silence on the phone as if Milagro was speechless because of her brother’s answer.  
  
“Okay, okay, fine, I’ll cover you while you go to do only you and God know what...” Milagro finally said in a neutral voice. “See you next weekend”  
  
Jaime hanged up too, confused.  
  
“How dod it went, was it awful? Is she mad?” Bart asked.  
  
“I.... I don’t know....” Jaime said bashfully.  
  
“You don’t know?”  
  
“I mean she swore a lot, but she’s been doing that ever since puberty... I thought she was mad... but at the end, she sounded so... calm....”  
  
“What did you tell her?”  
  
“I told her, I’ll explain everything the next weekend end”  
  
“The next weekend?!? That’s not enough time to prepare!!” Bart exclaimed getting anxious.  
  
“I know but... what other choice did I have? Besides we can’t hide forever... We’ll start moving first thing on Monday, we can miss work for a week, right?”  
  
“Are seriously asking that? I already sent my application for maternity disability!” Bart joked.  
  
Jaime snickered.   
  
“So you’re gonna be the mother?” Jaime played along.  
  
“Well, it was established when they turned out more like me,” Bart said smirking.  
  
“Ohh that’s not a valid reason” Jaime said.  
  
“Yes it is!” Bart said laughing.  
  
“Hahaha okay, whatever you say.... mamí” Jaime said smirking.  
  
“Oh you did not just call me that!” Bart started laughing more.  
  
“What?! You’re a mother now aren’t you?!” Jaime said playfully. “We can call you mommy, or mamí, or pfft mamacita, hahahahaha!!”  
  
“Oohhh I can be your mamacita papí chulo..” Bart said playfully smirking.  
  
Jaime blushed bright red and laughed even louder, he covered his face trying to hide his blush. Bart laughed too, his cheeks getting pink from the cringe.  
  
Jaime loved moments like this, they make him happy, so happy that he forgot the conversation he wanted to have with Bart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! this short chap is to prove that I'm still alive and to tell you beautiful people that I'll be a bit inactive for the next three weeks... Buuu... I'm sorry but finals call... and... I'LL BE BACK! I promise! vacations will come soon! please leave Kudos and comments to remember you!


	17. Chapter 17

Thaddeus Thwane-Allen was sure he was out of his mind.

“This is it.” He said plainly mostly to himself. “The end of the tunnel, the looney bin, the moded corner, schizophrenia, and PTSD are finally putting up with me”

He was laying in the floor, looking at the gray roof with blank eyes and a serious expression. He was holding an old book and a tireless toy car near his chest.

“Don’t say that Thaddeus! You are not insane, the situation is just bizarre.” Craydl tried to reassure him.

“Too bizarre to be real Craydl, therefore I must be mad” Thadd explained calmly.

“But if I’m living it too, doesn’t that means it’s real?” Craydl asked.

“Maybe it’s a collective hallucination” Thadd said.

“I do not hallucinate, I’m Artificial Intelligence.” Craydl said.

It took a moment for this information to sink inside Thadd’s head, once it did his eyes widened.

“Craydl you’re right!” He exclaimed as he jumped up his position. He had been so desperate that he forgot that Craydl was not only his friend and assistant but also an advanced piece of technology that was designed without any flaw. “If you’re living it, then it must be real!”

The toy car and the book fell from his chest. He forgot his excitement the moment he heard the toy car hitting the floor, a wave of nostalgia and sadness hit him, that was Bart’s favorite and only toy, with a sight he bent and reached for it, but the moment his hand made contact with the toy his vision blurred, and for a moment a bright light blinded him for a few seconds, when his vision recovered he just couldn’t believe his eyes.

In front of him, two little boys were sitting cross-legged playing with a similar toy car themselves, what was really creepy in Thadd’s opinion was that the two boys were obviously twins and what was more unsettling was that the kids looked a lot like him, or more specifically his own twin brother, Bart.

He stood there in a state of awe watching the kids playing in silence, without him noticing his eyes started watering, and he began to feel dizzy.

His mouth closed in a thin line, as his lip began trembling. He was officially crying.

After a few seconds, the children in front of him looked at him, eyes full with worry. They moved their mouths as if they were talking to him, but Thadd couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Suddenly a sharp pain attacked his skull, and the massive headache was enough to make him collapse with his eyes completely shut. Thadd hit the floor, still crying, he curled up and sobbed softly, as the two boys disappeared in thin air.

* * *

 

Bart came out of the kitchen after talking with Jaime, he stretched lazily and then looked at the kids playing with their toy cars sitting cross-legged on the floor, he smiled softly and decided to play with them.

He walked slowly towards the corner where the children were playing, once near them he reached for a toy car in the floor silently without the boys noticing him, but once his hand made contact with the toy a wave of nostalgia and sadness hit him. He was left in a state of shock, without him noticing his eyes began watering and his lips began trembling, he didn’t even notice when the kids turned around and asked him if he was okay in spanish and with eyes full with worry. Instead of replying Bart collapsed in the floor and started sobbing softly, scaring the children and making them yell too.

Jaime came out of the kitchen as quickly as he could.

“What happened?” Jaime asked to the twins, they tried to respond but they were sobbing too, feeling scary and guilty.

Jaime was left alone with three sad people and didn’t even knew why they were sad.

Still Jaime didn’t panicked, he tried to wake Bart from his shocking state, but since he had no luck doing so, he turned to Más and Menos, who were crying frightened, toy cars long forgotten by now, Jaime sighed, there was no one who could answer him, when he was a teenager it wasn’t uncommon for Bart to have panic attacks, but have been a long while since that happened, he needed to start doing something before the situation got out of hand, with the help of Khanji Da he was able to carry an unconscious Bart to the bedroom, once there he placed him carefully on the bed, then he returned quickly to where Más and Menos were crying, still sitting on the floor, now they were holding each other, trying to comfort themselves. Without doubting Jaime kneeled down and wrapped his arms tightly around the small boys.

“Sshhhsshh, no pasa nada, no pasa nada.” (Sshhhsshh, it’s okay, it’s okay) Jaime tried to reassure them.

At first the twins tensed, but they quickly reached for Jaime, accommodating their heads over each of Jaime’s shoulders and wrapping one of their arms around Jaime’s back.

They were still crying loudly directly to Jaime’s ears, and they were getting his shirt wet with tears (and boogers) but he didn’t care, instead, he rocked them back and forth, while he kept caressing their backs and repeating over and over-reassuring words in spanish.

“Todo esta bien, todo esta bien.” (Everything is fine) He said softly. But the kids couldn’t stop sobbing and yelling at Jaime’s ears.

“¡Perdon!” (Sorry!) They managed to yell every few seconds, between sobs.

“No, no, no fue su culpa pequeños” (no, no, it wasn’t your fault little ones) Jaime said, but they didn’t stop crying.

Jaime started to panic, he needed the kids to stop crying, he sighed knowing that he needed to use his last resource. “ _Naranja dulce, limón_ _partido, dáme un abrazo que yo te pido, si fuera falso mi juramento, en otro tiempo se olvidará..._ ” he sang softly while rocking Más and Menos, who slowly stopped yelling, listening to Jaime’s song.

Jaime sighed in relief when instead of loud crying he heard soft sobs, he tightened his arms around the boys. “No pasa nada, todo esta bien” (it’s okay, everything is okay) he said.

There was a moment of comfortable silence after the children sniffed and dried their tears (in Jaime’s shirt) finally, Más dared to speak. 

"¿Señor Jaime?" Más asked quietly.

"¿Si chiquito?" (Yes little one?) 

"¿El señor Bart, el esta... esta...?" (Mr. Bart is.. is.. is?) Más said shakily.

"El esta bien chiquito, esta dormido" (He's okay little one, he's sleeping) Jaime assured him, he could felt the boys relaxing once he said that. 

"¿Qué le pasó?" (What happened to him?) Menos asked, worriedly.

"No sé pequeño, pero estoy seguro de que esta bien" (I don't know little one, but I'm sure he's fine)

The twins sighed in relief and tightened the hug. 

"¿Quetal si vamos a ver como esta?" (What if we go and see him?) Jaime suggested, he felt the twins nodding over his shoulders. 

Khaji Da helped him to pick up the kids, even tough Jaime didn't need it, two tendrils came out of the scarab and held the kids carefully. At first, Más and Menos were scared of the robotic limbs, the moved a little to look at Jaime, with shocked puffy eyes. Jaime just smirked.

"¿Qué? Ustedes tienen super velocidad, yo tengo los poderes de un escarabajo robotico" (What? You have super speed, I got the powers of a robotic scarab) 

The kids smiled a little bit and readjusted their heads over Jaime's shoulders.

Jaime walked towards his room, once there Jaime confirmed that Bart was sleeping and no longer crying. 

"¿Mi amor? ¿Estas despierto?" (Love, are you awake?) Jaime asked almost as in cue Bart started to snore softly. "¿Lo ven? solo esta dormido" (You see? He's just sleeping)

Jaime let the children down on the bed, careful to not wake up Bart, once they where safely in the bed Khaji Da's tendrils retracted, then Jaime sat in the bed too.

Más went over to shake Bart awake softly, but when he couldn't wake him up the first time Jaime stopped him. "Dejalo dormir" (Let him sleep) Jaime said gently, Más obeyed, they all looked at Bart for a moment, until the twis realized it was useless and instead they turned to face Jaime. 

"¿Porqué le dices al señor Bart mi amor?" (Why do you call Mr. Bart my love?) Menos asked while cleaning his nose with his sleeve. 

Jaime blushed embarrassed almost immediately, he didn't want to have "the talk" with little 'Wait! How old are they?!' Jaime thought, and decided that he will explain the best he could, and then he will ask them.

"Por que lo amo" (Because I love him) That was the best explanation he could think of.

"¿Qué es amor?" (What is love?) Menos asked innocently, breaking Jaime's heart.

'How? How could they don't know this?' Jaime thought shocked and furious at CADMUS he pushed that anger aside and cleared his throat before answering.  "Bueno, cuando alguien ama a alguien, uno se preocupa por esa persona, le muestra afecto, le ayuda con lo que necesite, le desea todas las cosas buenas en el mundo..." (Well, when someone loves someone, they care for that person, they show them affection, they help them with whatever they need, they wish all the good stuff in the world upon them...) Jaime explained. 

"¿Afecto?" (Affection?) Menos asked, that little guy was full of questions. 

"Afecto, ya saves, abrazos, besos, caricias." (Affection, you know, hugs, kisses, caress) Jaime said.

"¿Qué es un beso?" (what's a kiss?) Menos aked, Más also looked curious.

Jaime sighed he moved near to Menos, carefully brushed the hair off his forehead and kissed his forehead, then he proceeded to kiss Más' forehead, they both smiled happily. 

"Eso es un beso" (That's a kiss) Jaime explained, before laying down, the boys followed his example and snuggled with him, each of them in one of Jaime's side, Jaime wrapped his arms around them, bringing them closer, even Khanji wrapped one tendril around each of them, making Jaime chuckle 'You're getting soft' Jaime thought to Khanji. 

'Quiet Jaime Reyes! The Más and the Menos need physical comfort for their psychological sake' Khaji Da excused himself, Jaime just rolled his eyes.

'Whatever you say buddy' Jaime thought. He then looked at the clock, it wasn't late at all.

"¿No tienen hambre? " (Aren't you hungry?) Jaime asked the kids, they shook their heads saying no. 

Más yawned, he was shortly followed by Menos, then by Jaime himself.

"¿Cuantos años tienen niños?" (How old are you kids?) Jaime asked, Más and Menos just shrugged. Jaime sighed. 'Well, Alex was almost six, they looked a bit older...' Jaime thought before saying.

"Bueno, ahora tienen seis años" (Well, now you're six years old) Jaime declared, the twins just nodded.

"¿No se quieren dormir un ratito?" (Don't you wanna sleep for a while?) Jaime asked the children.

"No, queremos cuidar al señor Bart" (No, we wanna take care of Mr. Bart) Más said sleepily.

"Okay ¿quieren que les cuente un cuento?" (You want me to tell you a story) Jaime asked.

"¿Cuento?" (story?) Menos asked, softly.

"Una historia que no es de verdad ¿Quieren que les cuente una?" (A story tha's not real, do you want me to tell you one?)

The twins nodded, genuinely curious. 

"Muy bien, erase una vez, una pequña familia de osos que vivia en el bosque, estaba bebé oso, mamá osa, y papá oso..." (Very well, once upon a time, there was a small family of bears that lived in the forest, there was baby bear, mom bear, and dad bear ...) Jaime started to narrate.

"Papá..." Más mumbled sleepily and cuddled closer to Jaime, placing his hand over Jaime's chest.

It took Jaime a few seconds to realize that he wasn't asking anything about the story, he was actually calling him dad, Jaime's eyes widened, he was suddenly very aware of the weight two little bodies pressing over his chest, the soft breathings near his neck, it gave him a warm fuzzy feeling, he had never felt before, not even with Bart or Milagro, and he was completely enamored with the feeling. 

Jaime didn't even bother in finished the story, because the twins were already deeply asleep, instead, he smiled and kissed the top of their heads good night.

"Que descansen mis amores" (sweet dreams my loves) Jaime said enjoying the moment.

His joy didn't last long. Bart shifted and a folded piece of paper came out of his hoodie pocket. Jaime took it carefully not waking the children, then unfolded it.

He had to bite down a gasp, but his eyes still seemed as if they could come out of his head, and his face looked shocked, it was a picture and not just any picture.

Jaime wanted to yell at Bart, demand an explanation, but right when he was about to do so Menos sighed in his sleep peacefully. 

'They have already been traumatized enough' Jaime thought, it took all of his wills, but Jaime relaxed, he didn't sleep instead he counted the seconds waiting for Bart to wake up.

 

 


	18. The complete history

Bart woke up feeling actually pretty rested, he shifted placing his cheek against his pillow, he opened his eyes slowly only to see red in front of him, at first he was surprised but then he realized that it was just Meno's head, he smiled, then he looked up the boy's head, just to see Jaime's eyes staring at him, he gasped softly.

"You scared me!" Bart whispered he looked at Jaime annoyed until he realized the hurt and sad expression in Jaime's face. "What is it?" He asked, 'wait! Why am I on the bed? Why are they here? The last thing I remember was picking up a toy car... and then...' Bart forgot.

"Bart... you told me that... you told me that... you told me something about your past, but you never told me..." Jaime said softly, Bart frowned confused.

"What?... What are you talking about?" Bart asked, sitting up.

Jaime shifted, carefully siting up without waking the children. Jaime had a long time to plan how he was going to afront this, he was going to talk with his boyfriend like a mature grown up. "Why... why didn't you tell me about your family?" Yep real mature.

Bart's eyes widened in shock "What? what do you mean? You know the Allens" He said hoping that he wasn't talking about what he thought he was talking.

"Apparently not all of them" Jaime said after shoving the picture he had found earlier in Bart's face.   

Bart was shocked, to say at least, guilty because Jaime was right, but also angry at Jaime for not respecting his privacy. "Where did you get that?!" he hissed. Jaime was going to reply but then Menos shifted between them and groaned in his sleep. Bart signaled the door with his head, Jaime silently agreed they stood up carefully not disturbing Más and Menos. 

They walked outside the room, once outside they looked at each other, both of them with expressions that showed betrayal, Bart was the first one to talk.

"That was private!" Bart said before snapping the photograph from Jaime's hand, who didn't bother about it instead he just stared at Bart brokenhearted.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jaime asked. 

"It doesn't matter anymore!" Bart said turning away from Jaime. 

"Yes it does! I've known you for more than 10 years, and just today I discover that you don't trust me enough for telling me about your family! The people you grew up with! That's something that the guy wants to _marry you_  would have wanted to know!" Jaime said.

"I know that, Jaime! But why do you care?!" Bart yelled. "It doesn't matter! They're gone!" 

By the mention of that Jaime's expression softened, suddenly feeling sorry for Bart.

"They are gone! They are gone!" Bart keep yelling, but not for Jaime to hear, he was only torturing himself repeating the words, his eyes started watering and tears slid down his cheeks, Jaime forgot about his anger and hugged him, Bart hugged him back pressing his face in Jaime's chest. "They're gone... They're gone..." Bart kept whispering while Jaime caressed his back. "They're gone..." 

"Bart... I'm sorry..." Jaime said.

Bart sniffed, he broke the hug and dried his tears in his sleeve. "No, it's okay... It's.. okay..." He sniffed and wiped his nose, then he cleared his throat. "You're... You're right..." 

Bart took out the picture without looking at Jaime, when he lay eyes on the image he felt like he wanted to cry again he slowed that feeling and cleared his throat again, then he gave the picture to Jaime, who took it carefully.

Jaime scanned the picture, still surprised about it, he looked at the old man with white hair and kind smile, he was the tallest of all the five people in the picture, next to him was a young woman with auburn  hair, she was also smiling and had her hands over the shoulders of a much younger Bart, a Bart that smiled happily at the camera, he was side hugging two other kids, on his left side he had his arm wrapped around a young preteen-girl, she was dark-skinned and had long black hair wrapped in a ponytail and on the right side, Bart was hugging a boy that looked his same age, in fact he looked exactly like Bart, except for his blond hair. Jaime couldn't help but feel surprised.

"You... you had siblings?" Jaime asked carefully, scared to say the wrong thing.

 Bart sniffed and shook his head. "No, just one brother, the girl, she is, was! She was my cousin..."

Jaime nodded, not really looking at the girl, but at Bart's brother, silently waiting for an explanation. Bart sighed.

"Her name was Jenni..." Bart informed him. "His name was Thadd..." 

Jaime's eyes widened, he remembered that just a few nights ago Bart was crying in his sleep, calling for someone called Thadd, he was calling for his brother.

"We were twin brothers..." Bart said, remarking the obvious, then he chuckled softly, calling Jaime's attention. "Well, we weren't exactly brothers..." 

"What do you mean?" Jaime asked.

Bart thought for a minute, he was already telling Jaime about it, he might as well tell him everything. "Do you remember the Thawnes?" 

"How could I forget them? Barry talks about how horrible they are every dinner night" Jaime said, just a bit playfully, Bart smiled a little.

"Well my mother's name was Meloni Thawne" Bart informed.

"You're kidding? You're part Thawne?" Jaime asked in disbelieve. Bart nodded.

"Yes, I am, and believe me that's not the most shocking thing about my childhood." 

"Then what is the most shocking thing?" Jaime asked.

"We better sit down" Bart suggested, and then he did so, he sat on the couch, Jaime did the same soon after, still holding the picture, Bart sighed before looking at Jaime and continuing his story softly. "As you know, my dad was Don Allen, I never knew him, but my mother, Meloni Thawne was still around, I was born as an only child, back there..."

"But what about Thadd?" 

"Don't interrupt me please, I'll get there, as I was saying, I was an only child, by the time I was born, my aunt Dawn and her husband had already passed away, leaving my cousin Jenni behind, for a while she stuck with my mom and me... Until I started to... have some... uh... developing problems... I started to develop at superspeed, I'm actually four years younger than I look... by the time I was just a week old I looked like a two-year-old toddler, my mom was afraid that I might die of super-old-aging so she asked for the resistance for help, there they told her that there was someone who could help me, Maxwell Crandall... he... he is, was, the old man in the picture... he helped me, well he and Wally West... somehow they discovered that running at a certain speed for a certain distance could stop the hyper-metabolism... at first it was hard... because you know the Reach ruled the world, I had to spend a couple of days inside a virtual reality thing... to slow the developing... it worked a bit... when everything was ready, I looked 4 years-old and had to run a lap around the world next to Wally, it worked, but Wally died shortly after... My mom left for a while... so Jenni and I stayed with Max, he was nice, and he took care of us... since I looked four, and no one could bother to take care of a three weeks old baby, I had to learn fast, luckily Max had a lot of patience, he trained me and Jenni, who is, was, also a speedster... by the time I looked 6 and Jenni was 8 we joined the resistance, we went on patrols, we trained... I remember that one day while patrolling... This man, he said he was my grandfather... he said he was the president of the 30th century and that I should be his legacy or something like that... I refused, because, well, he was evil... but when I was 7, I was patrolling and suddenly, someone tackled me at superspeed, it was Thadd, he was... he was a clone of mine made by my grandfather with my DNA... he was meant to kill me, as my grandfather's revenge, but instead of feeling scared, I ran to him, hugged him and called him brother... don't laugh! I was actually three years old! anyway, at first, he hated me... honestly I admired him, he was really smart, and talked fancily... He sometimes was even nice to me... we were some sort of frienemies... I usually asked him why he hated me, at first he said because I was annoying and bothersome, but then he admitted that it was because if he didn't kill me, he was never returning home, I asked him how his home was... he described something horrible, president Thawne was really mean to him... One day I just asked him that if instead of killing me, wouldn't he rather come home with me... It took a while, but he accepted, at first... he said he did it because anything was better than being around the president Thawne, my mom, who visited us from time to time, didn't really like him, nor did Jenni, only Max liked him, and honestly so did I, he was always there when I needed someone to talk too, and he helped me with a lot of stuff, actually he and I built the camera that took that picture... even though he was mean sometimes, and we fought, like a lot, I considered him my twin brother... he did so too, when we were ten... and we had to... let's just say we were in deep trouble... during that time he hugged me for the first time and called me brother... by the time we got out of that deep trouble, we were inseparable, we were Impulse and Inertia, we did everything together, we played together, we ran together, God, we even shared bed from time to time... and we also planed coming to the 21th century together..." Bart's eyes began to water. "We made the time machine together... We planed everything together... It was our secret, we wanted to save everyone... but.. they found our HQ... and... he... Jenni... Max... mom..." Jaime placed his hand over Bart's shoulder. "They... I was the only one..." 

Bart couldn't hold it any longer, he threw himself at Jaime's sobbing loudly. "I miss them so much!" Bart said between sobs.

"I know, I know love..." Jaime tried to reassure him, caressing his auburn hair.

"They're gone! I left them! now they're gone!" Bart repeated over and over, while Jaime tried to hush him.

"Mi amor... No, it wasn't your fault! You saved us! You saved us all..." 

"I miss them... I keep dreaming about them..." 

"It's okay cielo, it's okay for you miss them, it's okay for you to want to talk about them..." 

"But they're gone..." 

"But that doesn't mean that we have to forget them... Remember Coco? Día de muertos? we can make an altar only for them..." Jaime suggested gently.

Bart thought about it, a beautiful altar made only for his family "yes... that would be crash..." 

Jaime smiled softly. "I'm glad you told me"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner" 

"It's okay... wanna go back in there and sleep it away?" 

Bart chuckled a little at Jaime's suggestion "Yes, please" 

Jaime smiled and kissed Bart's head "Let's go" 

"Okay" Bart said before breaking the hug and pulling Jaime in for a kiss, it was just meant to be a quick peck, but it became slow and meaningful, slowly becoming a small makeout session, for Bart the kiss lasted an eternity, and it almost succeeded at pulling him out of his misery, but they drew apart when oxygen was needed, they looked at each other fondly, suddenly Jaime's expression changed, as if he just sucked a lemon.

"What?" Bart asked him

"I just remembered that you're actually 19" Jaime said astonished. 

"Pppfff hahahahaha!" Bart laughed at Jaime. "Hahaha, don't worry I can assure you that I'm 23 in mind and spirit" 

Jaime nodded still not quite sure about how to feel.

"let's go to bed..." Bart said pulling Jaime away from his thoughts.

They got up and slowly opened the door carefully, inside and on the Bed Más and Menos were still asleep, by some miracle the fight didn't wake them up, they somehow managed to get to the center of the bed, they were cuddling, to fight the shivers they had from time to time. The scene was enough to make the adult's heart melt.

"Oh my God, they're so cute!" Bart exclaimed in a whisper while Jaime opened a drawer to get a mattress, he placed it over the children, who practically melted under it.

"Shall we?" Jaime said indicating the bed. Bart nodded, he carefully climbed to the left side of the bed next to Menos, and Jaime to the right next to Más, they got under the mattress and stared at each other in a comfortable silence.

"How did they get here?" Bart whispered.

"They wanted to make sure you were okay, you scared them a lot after that panic attack"

"Panic attack?!" Bart exclaimed as softly as he could.

"Bart, you had a panic attack, you collapsed and passed out, I brought you here for you to recover, but unfortunately  the boys saw everything" 

"Oh poor things! Are they okay?" 

"It took me a while to get them to calm down, but they are fine" 

"Poor Más and Menos" 

Jaime chuckled. "We really got to name them"

"Amm how about Bartholomew III and Jaime Jr?" 

"Heck no!" Jaime said while giggling.

"Ammm well, honestly I would love for them to have hispanic names"

"Really? I'm not sure Bart... you know that having a name that isn't american in here gives you a hard life..."

"I know, it's just that... besides Jaime, I have always loved the name Miguel" Bart admitted.

"Miguel? Like Bunker's name?" Jaime asked.

"Yes, you know, it's funny to say, easy to pronounce, and according to your abuela it's the name of an angel" 

Jaime raised an eyebrow, realizing Bart was right, Miguel was pretty. "We could call him Mike" 

Bart liked the idea of that. "Wich one is going to have it?" 

"Aaaamm, Menos? I think it suits him..." Jaime admitted, looking at the said kid. 

"I think so too..." Bart said smiling. "What about Más?" 

"I don't know..."

"come on! I already named one I can't do all the work!" 

"Okay, okay, I got one... but you are going to hate me"

"why? which is it?"

"The name I have always like is... Maximiliano" Jaime admitted

Bart's eyes widened, he had honestly never heard that name before. "Maximiliano?" 

"Is the latino version of Maxwell or Maximus, all the people that I knew that had this name were brave and had a lot of audacity, I really think it suits Más" 

"We would call him Max?" Bart asked, Jaime nodded, he suddenly understood why Jaime didn't want to share the name, but aside the pain, the name sounded really crash in his opinion. "I like it" 

"You do?" 

"Yes, Max and Mike Reyes" 

"Max and Mike Allen" Jaime insisted.

"Max and Mike Allen-Reyes" 

"I like that" Jaime admitted "Maximiliano and Miguel Allen-Reyes, ha! we even kept the Ms from Más and Menos, what about the second names?"

Bart groaned "Do we have to give them second names?"

"Yes! Is part of your family's tradition! Jaime remembered that once Barry told him that no matter what, the Allens will always put the worst second names.

Bart groaned "fine what do you have in mind?" 

"Well, normally to the Miguels, their second name is Angel, you know Miguel Angel..." Jaime suggested.

"To cliché, I don't really like it" Bart admitted.

"Then I'm out of ideas"

Bart closed his eyes, feeling the tiredness returning at him. "let's think about it later after all we already have most of it"

"Fine, you're right, are you going back to sleep?" By the time he finished the question Bart was already asleep, still facing Jaime and with one arm around Más err Max and Mike, Jaime chuckled he held Bart's hand, also hugging the boys in the process and closed his eyes too. 

* * *

 

Thadd got up from the floor, and growled, he decided he was tired of it, of everything, he ran, as fast as he could, the room didn't disappear, he didn't care, he just ran.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm supposed to be studying! But I can't help myself! Thanks for reading! Tell me what do you think, did you like the names? those little cuties deserve good latino names, am I right?


	19. It's gonna be okay

"¡Tengo hambre!" the little voice filtered inside of Jaime's dreams, at first it was soft enough to ignore it, but then a small shake brought him back to consciousness.

"¿Qué? What?..." Jaime mumbled barely conscious.

"¡Tengo hambre!" (I'm hungry!) The little voice said again, Jaime slowly opened his eyes to see Max staring at him. 

Jaime took a second to wake up and process the words, once he did he sighed, he knew this will happen. "Te dije que comieras antes de dormir" (I told you to eat before you go to bed) Jaime said accusingly.

Jaime was expecting Max to sass him saying that he wasn't hungry then, or something like that, like Bart and his sister always did, but Max just looked down ashamed and guilty, making Jaime feel guilty himself.

"Perdona" (I'm sorry) Jaime said before looking at the alarm clock, the red digits spelled 10:00 pm, it was relatively early. He sighed, he sat up carefully, noticing that Mike and Bart were still sleeping. "Ven, vamos a comer" (come on, let's go eat)  Jaime said before getting up and offering his hand to Max, who carefully reached for it then followed him to the kitchen. 

Once in there, Jaime let go of his hand and Max walked towards the table and sat on a chair. 

The little boy watched as Jaime let go of his hand and left him to go to the fridge, then he proceeded to take out several things he couldn't identify, he watched carefully as Jaime turned his back on him and started to prepare... something, the boy sighed and relaxed, resting his head on the table. He liked this, the feeling that he could be able to relax around other people other than his brother, not so long ago all physical contact, that didn't come from his brother, was related to pain and punishment, now it wasn't, now it was comforting and it makes him feel safe, he likes hugging, before he had only do it with his brother, he felt his stomach grumble, and he wondered what was Jaime cooking  _'_ quisas _le_ pueda preguntar _'_ _(Maybe I can ask him)_ he thought, then he looked back at Jaime and smiled, he seemed nice, he liked hugging too, and he told him what love was, and he kissed his forehead, that's what nice people do. At least that's what they told him at the lab, back there, there were a lot of scientists being mean to them, but there were some that always made them cry, they always explained to them the meaning of 'nice people' what a family was and how it worked, a dad a mom and the kids, and sometimes they would tell them about how food and sweets tasted, how 'real boys lived'  and then they proceeded to tell them that they were lab rats, abominations or a failed experiment.

 _'You will never have a family you little lab rats! No one will be dumb enough to even want you in their lives!'_ Some ugly man's annoying voice echoed through his head. _'¡Pero no era_ cierto _!' (But he was wrong!)_ Max thought _'¡El señor Bart y el señor Jaime si nos_ quieren _! ¿Verdad?' (Mr. Bart and Mr. Jaime do want us! Right?)_ that thought took him back to the nightmare that woke him up last night.

* * *

  _In his dream, he woke up and he was back inside a capsule, Max's first instinct was to look around, the glass in front of his face was red and opaque, he couldn't see anything on the other side, his brother was next to him, holding his hand and unconscious,and there were millions of cables and needles piercing their skink. He panic, he started to bang on the glass and to scream._

 _'NOOOOOOO!! NO! PORFAVOR NO!'  He screamed at the top of his lungs,_ _but at first nothing happened, not even his brother woke up._

_He kept banging on the glass, in hopes that maybe it would break, but it didn't instead, the glass cleared, he was able to look to through the glass, where he could see a bunch of doctors in their lab coats looking at some papers, including the ugly man and the mean lady in the middle._

_His eyes widened, he banged the glass harder, after some time the doctors finally looked at him. Their piercing eyes freaked him out, filled him with fear. He suddenly stopped banging and swallowed hard, suddenly forgetting how to breathe._

_'¿¡Qué quieres?!' (What do you want?!)The mean lady asked him impatiently._

_He took a sharp breath and with all of the bravery he had he said over a whisper: 'El... am.. Bluebeetle y Kid Flash nos salvarán'  (Bluebeetle and Kid Flash will save us)_

_The mean lady raised an eyebrow, then she looked at the other doctors, they all started laughing, confusing the poor boy even more._

_'¿Qué no lo recuerdas?' (Don't you remember?)The mean lady asked him._

_With all the strength he had in his body he moved his head from side to side softly saying no._

_The mean lady just smirked before saying: 'Los regresaron, no los querian así que los abandonaron' (They returned you, they didn't want you and your brother, so they abandoned you) she said without any empathy._

_Max started to cry. '¡No es cierto!' (That's not true!)_

_'¡Callate!' (Shut up!) she screamed as she banged the glass, scaring him. Then she turned around to the other doctors 'Tenemos que hacer más pruevas' (We have to run more tests)_

_'¡NO! ¡NO! ¡No quiero regresar!' (NO! NO! I don't wanna go back!) he yelled. And then he woke up._

* * *

 "There you go!" Jaime's voice pulled him out of his memory.

The boy looked up just to see a plate with 12 PB and J sandwiches piled one over another. He graved one curiously. 

"¿Qué es esto?" (What is this?) He asked as he looked at the sandwich.

"Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches, give it a try" Jaime said as he sat down on the opposite side of the table.

The boy sniffed it at first, it smelled good, then he took a big bite out of it and moaned, it was so good he almost wanted to cry, that was also another thing he liked, the food, it was so good! Nothing compared to the smelly goo they used to feed them in the lab.

Jaime watched the kid with a mixture of amusement, disgust and a bit of amazement, the kid could eat a whole sandwich in just two bites, he was going to tell him to slow down, but he already knew that it would be like talking to a wall, a really hungry wall. The kid was eating a sandwich per half a minute, but by the time he finished his 6th, he felt his hand itch, he stopped mid-track on his way to grab his 7th.

When the boy stopped reaching for the food, it called Jaime's attention, as far as he had known the kid, he never stopped eating at mid-track, neither did his bro... ooh, suddenly Jaime understood why the boy stopped exactly at mid-track.

"I can make more" Jaime assured, making the boy look up to him, he glanced at Jaime and gave him a hopeful look that asked 'for real?' "Really! I will make more for your brother, and for you, if you want..." before he could finish Max was already devouring the last sandwich. "... More" 

"Sí" The kid said softly. 

Jaime smiled and made more sandwiches after he made another six, he returned to the table and offered the plate to the boy, but instead of devouring the food in seconds, he stared at the food, this also called Jaime's attention after the first ten seconds he began to worry.

"Hey kid, are you alright?" Jaime asked softly. The kid remained quiet. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I promise I won't get mad" 

He remained quiet for another moment, before quietly asking "¿Porqué?" (Why?) 

"Why what, love?" Jaime asked.

"Eso ¿Porqué es tan bueno con nosotros? Ni siquiera nos conoce" (That. Why are you so nice with us? You don't even know us) He said.

Jaime's eyes widened in surprise and in fear, he felt his heart ache. "Because you're my sons" He said sure of his answer.

"¡No es cierto! ¡Somos experimentos fallidos! ¡No somos de verdad!" (No we're not! We're just failed experiments! We're not even real!) Max exclaimed.

Jaime got up of his chair, making Max jump a little, he thought that his big mouth got him into troubles again, but Jaime just approached to him and kneeled in front of the chair so they were eye level, the kid looked away. Jaime couldn't understand, just some hours ago this same boy trusted him, he called him dad, he shouldn't believe those things, Jaime wouldn't let him. 

"Hey, look at me" The kid looked away farther. "Hey, Miramé" This time Jaime gently dragged his chin until the boy was facing him. "Ni tu ni tu hermano son experimentos fallidos" (Not you nor your brother are failed experiments) He said determinedly "Ustedes son niños, nuestros niños, los niños más maravillosos de este mundo"(You are boys, our boys, the most wonderful boys all around the world) 

"¡Solo dice eso porque tenemos su ACM!" (You only say that because we have your CMA!) Max accused him.

"Es ADN, amor, y no es cierto, yo los amo por como son, mira cielo, se que no nos conocemos bien, pero pienso que ustedes son grandiosos, tu eres tan valiente, tan alegre, tan divertido, siempre estas ahí para cuidar a tu hermano, y te preocupas por nosotros, te precupaste por Bart y eres un muy buen niño, mi amor, porfavor no pienses eso." (It's DNA, love, and it's not true, I love you two for who you are, look sweety, I know that we don't know each other too well, but I think that you two are amazing, and you, you're so brave, so happy, so funny, you're always there for your brother, and you worry about us, you got worried about Bart and you're such a great kid, my love, please don't think that) Jaime pleaded, for the first time during this whole situation he felt like crying, but he thought that there had been enough tears for today, so he tried to push the feeling away. 

 _'Jaime Reyes,_ the Max's _levels of dopamine are decreasing'_ Khaji da said

Max looked at Jaime, his eyes started to crystallize again, so did Jaime's.

"¿De verdad nos quiere?" (Do you really want us?) Max asked, looking down, almost too afraid to face Jaime.

"Con todo mi corazón" (With all my heart) He declared, before pulling the kid into a tight embrace, during the hug, Jaime let a few silent tears roll down his cheeks, he cleaned them fast, then he stroked the boy's hair and kissed the back of his neck, on the other side of the hug, Max was smiling slightly, he was more than happy with the idea of someone wanting them, instead of abandonment. After what seemed an eternity Jaime broke the hug, and the kid's first instinct was to look down to avoid eye contact, but before he could Jaime cupped his face with his hands and squeezed his cheeks.

"How could I not love you?! Just look at you!" Jaime said in an attempt of a baby voice, while he playfully squeezed the kid's face forcing him to make a fish face.  "So handsome!" he said as he stroked the kid's hair just to decent back to his cheeks, he stroked the kid's hair again, but this time he pushed all back so all his face was clear, suddenly Jaime's expression softened. "Look at you..." he said softly as he actually did it. "Your big brown eyes... Your chubby little cheeks with... with freckles... your cute little nose... your messy red hair..." Jaime said as he traced the outline o Max's face with his thumbs. _'God, you're beautiful'_ Jaime thought, as he smiled fondly. "So Sweet!" He said before kissing his forehead. "So great!" he kissed his cheek."So perfect!" He kissed his other cheek. 

The kid closed his eyes enjoying the moment and smiled taking advantage of his cheek's new found freedom, showing the gap of his teeth and making Jaime smile too. _'Bart was right, that gap does make them adorable'_ Jaime thought as he rubbed the kid's cheeks with his thumbs. "Look at you... Such a cute little boy... _My_  boy... My son... My little Max..."

Suddenly the boy's eyes snapped open. "¡¿Quién?!" (Who?!) he asked with a hurt puzzled look.

Jaime's eyes widened realizing what he had done. _'Oh fuck'_ he thought worriedly, realizing that Bart wouldn't be happy with the fact that Jaime named their son without him. 

"Max?" The kid asked completely clueless. He looked straight at Jaime, one look of his big brown puppy eyes was enough to make Jaime spill the beans.

 _'Well, what's done it's done'_  Jaime thought, as he grabbed the boy's shoulders before saying. "Well umm... Look, Bart and I were talking, and... um... and we remembered that we haven't named you yet... so..." The kid started to smile again already drawing his conclusions. "So... your name is Maximilianooooo...." _'Second name! I need, I second name!'_ Jaime thought desperate. "Ooooo...Owen!" _'_ Yes _, that works!'_   "Maximiliano Owen Allen-Reyes... You like it?" 

Max didn't reply, instead, he jumped off the chair and tackled Jaime in a hug. It took all of Jaime's strength and a little help of Khaji-Da to not fall off. "I guess that's a yes" Jaime said with a bit of a chuckle. 

Max broke the hug and looked directly into Jaime's eyes, then he cupped his cheeks, just like Jaime did a few minutes ago, and forced him to make a fish face, then with a really serious look he started to analyze his face, he stretched his cheeks and forced to smile, he moved his face up and down and from side to side, while Jaime started to feel scared, like this was the most important test in his life, and he didn't want to fail. Suddenly Max stopped and stared directly at his eyes. _'He hates it! No, He hates me! that must be it! Oh I'm a horrible father!'_ Jaime thought panicked, but Max started to smile, at first, it was slightly and soft, then it became wider with a soft chuckle.

"Y-es" Max said, doing his effort to speak english. Jaime's eyes widened with surprise.

"Yes?" Jaime asked arching both eyebrows and starting to smile. 

"Yes!" Max said nodding. 

"Yes? Sí?!"

"Hihihihi Sí!" Max said between giggles. 

Jaime pulled him into a hug again. "That's great!" He said full of excitement. "That's amazing!" He said before breaking the hug and holding the kid's shoulders. "You're amazing!" he said while shaking the kid, making him laugh in the process. "You're both amazing!" He said suddenly missing little Mike. "Come on, let's go get your brother!" 

"Sí!" Max said excitedly too.

Jaime picked up the kid and rushed out of the kitchen.

* * *

In the meantime: 

Mike woke up just a minute after his brother left, he practically felt the moment he walked out of the room, it was something of theirs, They could feel when the other was in trouble or happy or sad, they could feel each other's pain, They knew if they thought if an idea, or a thing or something or someone was bad or good, and every time they wandered too far away from each other the hand they need hold to make their powers work would tingle and feel itchy. Mike looked at his itchy hand, that was resting next to him over the pillow, and gave it a sad smile, it was their thing, like their own secret language that didn't even need words because they were always on the same page, they were zink, it was almost as if they knew what each other was thinking.

Mike sighed, feeling all sort of mixed feeling about that connection he had with his brother, he believed it was a good thing, he really did, but after some painful test and experiments he sometimes wished it wasn't there, that way they could have avoided all the bad people that thought it was ' _fascinating_  ' when they hurt his brother and he also  screamed, and vice-versa.  

His hand itched again, scaring him more, _'just 24 hours'_ he remembered a girly scientist saying it to the mean lady after what was by far one of the worst experiment they had been forced to participate, they kept them apart in different rooms for one week.

* * *

 

(Okay guys, I'm pretty tired of translating, so just imagine the villains talking in spanish)

_The brothers were sitting on what appeared to be a clinical bed, they were wearing their 'plus and minus' suits, and they were holding each other's hands as if their life depended on it, in a way it did. The kids were visibly shaken, faces completely pale, hair sticky because of sweat, they were whimpering and sobbing as quietly as they could._

_Outside the room, in front of them, the mean lady and another girl scientist were discussing the results of their latest experiment: Keeping them apart for a week._

_'_ _They only remain calm for 24 four hours, after that, they go completely unstable, at first, they were only complaining about the itch, but then they were showing obvious signs of pain, they had hyperspeed convulsions, both at the same time, they showed physical changes, their skin turned pale at first, then from their hand this rotten gray color started to appear.... and that's not even the most fascinating thing, they never banged the door, they banged the wall that was in between them.' The girl scientist said._

_'How is that fascinating?' the mean lady asked with her ice-cold tone._

_'We never told them they were in neighboring rooms'_

_Mike could practically feel the mean lady's smile crush his soul and body, but the thing that he hated the most was that hideous word._

_'Fascinating!' The mean lady exclaimed 'We need to run more test!'_

_Mike held his brother's hand tighter._

* * *

 

 _'Fascinating!'_ That word made him sick, literally, it made his tummy turn, he remembered way too well all the situations where that word was used, never good ones, that word came after horrible experiments and painful side effects. That was only one of the worst, after that one, things started to get more painful.

Mike closed his eyes and tried to push all those thoughts away, but suddenly he opened them again, gasping after he felt something touching his itchy hand.

"Shh shh, It's me, it's just me" Bart said in a soothing voice and squeezed the boy's hand softly. 

Mike released the breath that he was holding and relaxed, slowly he turned his head to look at Bart, who was lying next to him holding his hand.

"Sorry I didn't mean to scare you" Bart said smiling a little.

Mike looked at Bart, then he glanced at his hand that was currently trapped underneath Bart's, then he looked at Bart again. "¿Estás... Estás bien?" (Are you okay?) he asked referring about Bart's earlier panic attack. 

Bart smiled slightly and started to caress Mike's hand. "Yes, honey, thank you" 

"¿Miel?" (Honey?) Mike asked for like the third time.

Bart huffed a little giggle, deciding to finally answer the boy's question. "Yes, honey. You wanna know why?" he asked with a smirk.

Mike nodded his head.

"Really?" Bart asked playfully.

Mike nodded his head again, starting to smile.

"Really?!" 

"Sí" Mike whispered softly while smiling.

 "Sorry what? I didn't hear you?" Bart said playfully, making Mike giggle.

"hihihi Sí!" he said louder, Bart giggled two. 

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you... It's because" Bart paused and smirked just to create suspense, Mike chuckled.

"Dime!" (Tell me!) He said playfully, making Bart laugh.

"Hahaha, okay, it's because, when you love someone and you think they're sweet, you called them honey, because it's just as sweet as them" Bart explained.

Mike gave him a puzzled look. "¿Soy dulce?" (Am I sweet?) he asked confused. 

"Yes" Bart said, caressing the boy's hand.

"¿Como la miel?" (like honey?) 

"haha yes" 

Mike took a minute to think about his next words, he focused his eyes on the empty void, analyzing. Finally, he decided to ask "¿Y qué tan dulce es la miel?" (And how sweet is honey?) 

Bart gave him a sad smile. "You haven't try that either, have you?" He asked him, it was peculiar, to say at least, how the boys knew a lot of things, but at the same time they didn't, they lacked experiences. Bart remembered when he was little and Max taught him all about, stars, and green grass, and white snow and fruits, Bart practically knew it all, but he never really saw anything, he didn't really know it. 

"No" Mike's soft answer pulled him back to reality. 

Bart looked at him and smiled. "Well, you can try it later"

Mike smiled slightly. 

"And then we can go see the stars and go sit on the green grass and try all the fruit..." With each statement, the boy's smile widened. "And, and one day we can build a snowman, would you like to?" 

Mike nodded.

"You'll love it, both you and your brother, I promise you, it's gonna be fascinating" Bart said with a goofy smile, that quickly disappeared when the boy's face changed to a sickish one. "What's the matter?" Bart asked softly, squeezing the boy's hand, but instead of answering he just pulled his hand back turned around and curled up in a ball, hugging his knees. "Hey... did I said something wrong?" Bart asked while reaching the boy's shoulder.

There was a moment of intense silence, the tension was too much so Bart decided to try again. "Please tell me" he pleaded.

"es esa palabra..." (It's that word...) The kid mumbled said after a moment. "...no me gusta..." (I don't like it)

"Why not?" Bart asked as gently as he could. 

"Por... porque... yo... ellos.... nostros... ella..." ('cause...Beacuse... I... they... us... she...) The little boy mumbled trying his best to not cry again.

Bart sat up, making Mike react and tense up, that made Bart angry, the fact that they were so afraid, that their trust and confidence drop like nothing in the matter of milliseconds, that they always blamed everything on themselves, that the had cried so much for who knows for how long, that they had to be always on guard and expecting the worst out of people, Bart hated that, he hated the so-called scientist that made the boys like that, he hated himself for not being able to fix it, and he hated the fact that he used to be like that, all his life, he had to be prepared for the worst, to run in case of trouble and to never look back, and he hated that way of living, he hated what it had done to him, he hated how long it took him to get out.

He looked down at Mike, who was still curled up, he had his eyes shut and he was so tense that he was practically shivering, he had shut his mouth in a thin line, Bart could hear the muffled whimpers of fear. That broke Bart's heart, that poor boy, he could only imagine how afraid he must be, how lonely, Bart could never imagine how lonely those kids must feel, sure they had each other, just like he had Thad, but he and Thad had Max as a father figure and Jenni as big sister/scolding mom, even if Jenni didn't totally like them, she loved them as a sister and worried  about them, Max and Mike had no one but each other, no family, no mom, no dad... no dad... Bart started to feel guilty, they were alone because he wasn't there on time, because while they were being tortured in an underground lab in Guatemala he was painting in art school, Bart knew that everyone would say that it wasn't his fault, that he didn't know that CADMUS had his and Jaime's DNA, but... that didn't change anything, that didn't change the fact that they were his sons and that he hadn't been there to protect them, and now looking at them, looking at Mike, he looked so small so fragile, Bart couldn't help but think about something that Richie once told him.

* * *

_"Hey, bro, if I ask you something, you promise you won't get mad?" Bart asked Richie, they were sitting at the top of a building because of a stake-out mission, and Bart was practically dying of boredom._

_"Bart I have enough already with the pervert of Francis asking, well more like joking, about my sex life and Miguel making me stupid fashion questions to know "which type of gay I am"..." Richie said nonchalantly not even looking away from the spot they were watching._

_"What!? Ew no! It's nothing like that!" Bart exclaimed._

_"Oh, okay then go ahead" Richie said, now looking at Bart._

_"Okay then, may I ask, why do you keep calling Alex "baby" so much? He's not a baby anymore." Bart asked away, even with the helmet on he could see how Richie's expression changed to a surprised one like he wasn't expecting the question, Bart felt bad and tried to correct it. "I mean, I didn't mean it that way! I didn't mean to offend you! I just wanted to know! You don't have to answer if you don't wanna..."_

_"No, Bart, Bart, i_ t's _okay" Richie said starting to smile "really you just caught me off guard, wasn't expecting that question at all"_

_"Sorry" Bapologizedised again._

_"Nah man, it's okay. Well being honest is just the way I see him"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Well you know, because of my power, my brain refuses to be illogical, like, I never called Virgil "Babe" or "Baby" because he didn't look or acted like a baby, in fact, he was quite the opposite, he wasn't small or reached for protection, he was strong and big, he was all man, if you know what I mean" Richie said that last part mischievously making Bart chuckle and blush a bit. "But then he handed me Alex and he was, God, he was so little and so fragile and he just cried and held on to me, fully trusting that I would protect him, so my brain was like "This! This is a baby! This will always be a baby!" and well, the idea stuck, it doesn't matter that he's five now, I look at him and all I see is a little baby I need to take care of" Richie said starting to get moved by his own story._

_"Awwww! That's so cute!" Bart exclaimed_

_"Does that answer your question?" Richie asked friendly._

_"Yes, thank you"_

_"Good... Now, the drug dealer is heading south by foot" Richie said returning to his Gear mode._

_"Oh! Right! That! Let's go!"_

* * *

 

Bart sighed at the memory, at the time he thought it was cute, but he never fully understood what Richie meant

. These poor kids, they just listened to him a fully trusted that he could protect them, that he could help them, maybe it was out of mere desperation, but still, they did. And right now, they looked so small and fragile, just like, well babies. But at the same time, they weren’t.

No one ever called Bart baby before, Jaime always called him pet-names in spanish, and his family, well for Max, he was “son” or “kiddo” must of the time., for Jenni, he was “Bartie” when she was in a good mood, if Thad was feeling brotherly, he would stop being “Allen” and start being “little brother” or simply “Bart” without the sarcasm, only his mom had a permanent nickname for him, every single time she came visit she would almost never call him Bart, she always called  him “Sunshine” , Bart smiled at that, it had been so long since he even thought about that, he started to remember the little song and everything.

He looked down at Mike, he was so frightened, Bart knew he had to do something, he wasn’t sure of what, but still, he needed to comfort the kid. So carefully he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, making him jump a little and shut his eyes even harder, then slowly he leaned down and kissed his check softly. “Then you will never hear that word again.”  Bart whispered shortly after the kiss.

Mike jumped up a bit, but this time not out of fear, but out of surprise, he wasn’t expecting that at all, he opened his eyes, letting a single tear scape, then he slowly turned around to face Bart, who cleaned the small trail the tear left with his thumb, surprisingly this time Mike didn’t flinched away, he just laid there staring at Bart.

“You will never have to listen to that word again” Bart said again, Mike only blinked “You don’t have to be afraid of doing the wrong thing, of saying the wrong thing, not anymore, because nothing, nor no one will ever hurt you, not anymore, not while I’m here, not while Jaime is here, I promise, I will never, ever, let something bad happen to either one of you.” Bart said fighting back the tears. “I’m sorry we didn’t know, I’m sorry we didn’t get there sooner, we should have!”

Bart almost snapped, but Mike’s piercing eyes prevent him to, instead he opened his arms and smiled softly “C’mere” he said over a whisper. It took Mike a minute to react, but he eventually started to get up, he did it slowly and cautiously at first, but a few seconds later he practically launched himself to Bart’s arms.

Bart was still sting cross-legged in the bed when Mike tackled him, the moment he felt the boy’s arms and legs wrapped around him he returned the hug and stud there for what seemed like forever, until Bart found the strength to talk again. “I love you… I love you so much…”  Bart said as he caressed the boy’s hair. “I love you so much Mike”

The boy carefully pulled away from the hug and looked up at Bart. ‘Oh shit, I fucked up’ Bart thought panicked as he stared at the boy’s eyes, he didn’t want to name him without Jaime. They started at each other for a couple of awkward seconds until Mike finally dared to quietly ask. “¿Quién?”

Bart looked away not knowing what to do, he spared the boy a glance and his heart broke, the boy looked hurt and scared. Bart gave up immediately. “…Look… Uum… We…. Me and Jaime talked… and we…We decided that… That your name is Miguel… umm…” _Think fast speedster!_ “…uhm …Felipe?? … Allen-Reyes, Mike for short.” Bart said and looked at the boy for some sort of approval. “Do you… do you like it?”

The little boy’s surprised look softened and he smiled slightly before carefully hugging Bart again, resting his head in his chest and nodding, Bart wrapped his arms tightly around him, he held him for a while, then he rubbed his back and cleared the hair from his ear “I love you, Mike” He said softly before kissing the top of his head.

“...Ai..lob…U”

Bart’s heart melted, he held the boy tighter and kissed his head softly a couple of times. He could have stayed like that forever, until a noise in the kitchen made him turn to face the door, almost immediately he heard Jaime’s and Max’s laugh coming from the kitchen, Bart smiled and looked at the boy in his arms who was looking curiously at the door. “What do you think they’re doing?”

Mike look at Bart and shrugged, Bart smiled he let go of Mike and got up from the bed before offering Mike his hand, who gladly toke it before jumping off the bed.

“come on” Bart said before they walked to the door, the second the door opened Jaime came running holding Max with his left arm and with his other arm he literally lifted Mike up to the air before catching him again with Khaji da’s help.

The boy yelped and laughed loudly, Jaime and Khaji held both giggling boys and rocked them side to side, he smiled looked at them lovingly and he kissed Mike in between his cheek and his neck. “Te quiero”

The boy smiled and looked at Jaime “Mike.” He declared happily.

Jaime’s eyes widened in surprise. “Who told you that? Bart!”

“Max!” Max exclaimed throwing his arms up to the air

“You were saying?” Bart said smirking.

Jaime smiled sheepishly, Bart approached to them and he ruffled Max’s hair. “Yes, you’re Max”

“Maximiliano Owen Allen-Reyes” Jaime added proudly.

“Owen? Really?” Bart asked playfully.

“Hey Mike, what’s your name?” Jaime asked

“Miguel..Felipe..Allen..Reyes…” Mike said sheepishly as if reciting an oral speech for school.

“Miguel Felipe?” Jaime said looking at Bart “Michael Phelps?”

Bart smiled sheepishly and cupped Jaime’s cheeks, Bart felt two more of Khaji Da’s robotics limps wrap around his waist and pull him closer.

“También te amo” (I love you too) Jaime whispered, then some clicking and beeping noises came of from Khaji da, making Jaime roll his eyes. “Fine, fine, we love you” Bart’s smile widened, and he went for a peck on the lips.

“Bleah! Eew” Max and Mike exclaimed respectively making Bart and Jaime laugh.

“hehehe, c’mere sunshine” Bart said before taking Max in his arms.

“luz de sol…” Mike repeated in spanish.

“Yes, sunshine, wanna know why?” Bart asked, Mike smiled and nodded.

“’cause, _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine_  
you make me happy, when skies are gray,  
you’ll never know dear, how much I love you,  
please don’t take my sunshine away.”

The twins visibly relaxed hearing the song and leaned to their respective hugs, they liked music.

Jaime looked down at Mike “Hey Mike, ya hungry?” He asked in a soft voice, the boy nodded.

They left the boys in the kitchen and Jaime asked Bart to make some more sandwiches.

“Where are you going?” Bart asked.

“Just need to make a call.”

Jaime got out of the kitchen and took out his cell phone, the first thing he saw was that he had a lot whatsapp notification’s from Paco, Brenda and Traci , he answered, “Hey everything’s fine, but lets meet soon, I want you guys to meet a couple of guys ;)” then, without even waiting for an answer, he searched trough his contacts and found Tim’s number.

“ _This better be good Jaime, I’m sparring with a ten-year-old”_ Tim´s voice was heard from the other line along with the sound of clinging metal.

 _“More like loosing to a ten-year-old”_ Damian’s voice was heard.

 _“Ohh, you little… What is it_ Jaime _?”_

“Yes, hey I’m just calling to ask for a few days off for me and…”

 _“Bart, yes I have been expecting this call_ ”

“Ohh, really, okay great!”

_“Batman also has something for you, I’ll send you the coordinates after I teach Damian a lesson.”_

_“You’ll be waiting a long time_ Reyes. _”_ Damian added

“Jejejeje, Okay, Thanks Tim.”

_“Jaime, one more thing, have you already named the kids”_

“Yes, Miguel Felipe and Maximiliano Owen Allen-Reyes, Mike and Max for short”

 _“Owen?”_ Tim asked all of the sudden

“Yes, Maximiliano Owen, it was the first thing that popped up in my mind, why?”

_“No reason, you have two weeks, I’ll send you the coordinates later”_

“Okay…”

After hanging up Jaime returned to the kitchen, the boys were sitting together and holding hands, he smiled knowing that they were gonna be okay, it may take time, but they will be.

* * *

In the batcave Damian and Tim stopped sparring for a moment and looked at each other. 

"Do you think Allen knows?" Damian asked coldly, but curiously to Tim 

"I doubt it" Tim answered plainly "Bart is not the one who goes around investigating, now where were we?"

Damian smirked and prepared his Katana o continue to spare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!! sorry, I'm still alive! just dead on the inside! I really hope you like this chap, it doesn't really convince me, but eh.  
> Okay some changes, I said that Barry's twins were 4, well they're actually 10 just like Dami, that's all please leave kudos and I love your comments.


	20. Menwhile...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello... I live... It's 3:00 am... here's some Virichie, don't ask why... just...

Richie was grading some papers, in his living room, waiting for his husband to return from patrol, until suddenly the flickering of the lights distracted him.

“ARgh, Come on math! Make some sense!” He heard Alex grudges.

He sighed, before leaving his work and marched to the kitchen, where Alex was sitting on his wheelchair, with all of his notebooks in front of him over the table, he was looking down and had a pouting face, probably ashamed of the light thing.

“What did you do?” Richie asked with his “scolding dad tone” trying his best not to smile at Alex’s pouting.

Alex crossed his arms and looked even further down, before admitting. “I made the lights flicker...”

“And why did you make the lights flicker?”

“Because I got angry!”

“And why did you get angry?”

Alex sighed admitting defeat. “Because I don’t understand math homework!” he said angrily.

“And what can you do about that?”

For the first time, Alex lifted his face and looked at Riche with big puppy eyes. “Can you help me with my homework, dad?”

Richie’s heart melted a “Of course, baby!” he said as he pulled a chair to sit next to the boy. “Okay, so what are we working on here?”

“This” Alex said as he handed Richie the notebook.

“Okay, it says “Sally needs to buy 15 apples for a pie, if in the store, each apple cost 5 dollars, how much is Sally going to pay in total?”- Richie read out loud and laughed internally, he couldn’t believe that someone was sweating over this problem, but then again Alex was just five, and he was already pretty smart for a kid his age. “So, what do you think we need to do?”

“Tell Sally to ask the cashier” Alex said jokingly, making Richie huff a laugh. 

“Come on Alex, I know you know this” The blond said, while accommodating his glasses, but Alex just played with the pencil without even trying to solve the problem. “Okay look, if Sally buys one apple, she will pay 5 dollars, right?”

Alex nodded.

“Good, so she needs to buy 15 apples, if she pays 5 for each, how do we know how much she paid at the end?”

Alex shrugged.

“Well, if each apple cost the same, wouldn’t it be like buying the same apple 15 times” he said making emphasis on “times” what’s wrong with a little help?

Alex’s eyes widened, Richie could swear, he saw a lightbulb turning on inside his head.

“You need to multiply 5 times 15!” Alex said.

“Really?! Why?!” Richie asked, he need to make sure that the boy understood the problem.

“‘Cause if each apple cost the same, to get the total you need to add 5 fifteen times, but it’s easier if you just multiply it!”

“That is absolutely correct!” Richie praised him. He watched the little boy work on the multiplication on the notebook, he could hear him muttering “five times five is 25, I use five and save two for later, five times one is five, plus two, five, six, seven…”

“Sally paid 75 dollars for the apples!” The boy said triumphantly.

“That’s right! Can ya do the rest of the problems?” Richie asked, but the boy was already working on the rest of the problems. Richie just watched him proudly and ruffled the boy’s curly hair, he wasn’t surprised by all the static electricity that sting his hand, he was already more than used to the perpetual electric field that surrounded his son and his husband, what did surprised him tough, was the fact that his hand was able to sink in the curls. “Baby, I think you need a haircut.”

“Nuh-hu I wanna let it grow.” Alex informed with a cheeky grin.

“So an afro then… interesting…” Richie said mockingly.

“What?! No! I don’t want an afro” Alex exclaimed making Richie laugh.

“hahaha, okay…. Maybe you can dread it, like your pops” Richie suggested.

“Nah, I don’t wanna have it like pops, he looks like king Harrow”

“No he doesn’t… Oh my God he does!” Richie realized shocked, making Alex laugh. “He even has the same beard and everything!”

They both laughed for a while until Richie finally found the words to carry on the conversation. “Okay, okay, so no afro, no dreads, let’s just… let it grow and see what happens”

Alex nodded happily and continued to work in his homework, while Richie just continued to play with his hair.

“Hey, Alex, you never finished to tell me, how was your day with the twins?”

“So crash! They’re super cool dad! They like to play with me and they’re funny! And we’re best friends now!”

“That does sound crash, they seem like nice kids, was everything, you know, whelmed?”

“Totally aster dad!”

In a couple of minutes, the boy was done with math. “Done!” he exclaimed proudly.

“That’s great baby, you got any homework left?”  

“Aaam… yep!” The boy exclaimed before reaching for another notebook and opening it on a page where the image of a three was pasted. “Our teacher asked us to make a family three… she said that we could either draw or use pictures”

“Do you wanna draw all your family?” Richie asked.

 “No, not really” Alex said frowning a bit making Richie chuckle.

“Okay, wait here, I think your grandma left a photo album in here somewhere last time she visited.” Richie said getting up and leaving the kitchen. In a couple of minutes, he was back with a small photo album. “You got glue and scissors?”

“Yep, isn’t grandma gonna be mad for cutting the pictures?” Alex asked worriedly.

“Nhu… your grandma has a billion of these, plus we won’t tell her.” Richie said smirking while he sat next to his son once again. “Now lets see…” He opened the album and couldn’t help but smile as he was greeted with a picture of Alex on his fifth birthday, he was behind a big cake and was smiling wildly to the camera. “Aww look at this one baby!”

“I can use that one!” Alex said before snapping the picture from Richie’s hands, it almost shattered Richie’s heart when he started to cut it, luckily, he backed up all the pictures in his computer. “Alex, don’t snap like that, it’s rude.”

“Sorry” Alex said while pasting the picture in the notebook. “Look I can use this one! You and pops are in here!”

“Let me see” Richie said as he leaned to see said picture. It was a simple picture of him and Virgil side hugging each other and smiling, Richie smiled at the picture. “Yeah I like that one!”

The boy was already cutting the picture, while Richie took over the album and scanned the rest of the pictures with a hint of nostalgia, he stopped to look at a picture of his parents-in-law, he sighed, they were great people, he doesn’t remember a lot of Jean Hawkins, just that she was the kindest woman ever, but unfortunately she died back when he and Virgil were just eight, and Robert, well only God knows where Richie would be without Robert’s guidance and help, he was the one that pulled him and his friends out the street after the gas incident, it broke his heart when Robert was diagnosed with leukemia, and how it had only gotten worse after his old Youth Center was closed, Richie also was depressed after that, Virgil, Francis, Edwin and him practically grew up there, but after Dr. Dorado offered him a job in the administration of the Meta-Human Youth Center, and his grandchildren were born, he seemed to be alive again, he was actually getting better and doesn’t have plans on giving up on life any time soon. Richie blinked, and returned to reality, he looked at the little boy in front of him “Look, Alex, this is a good picture of your grandparents.”

“Let me see” Alex said before leaning and looking at the album, he frowned confused. “That’s not grandma”

Alex never met Jean, he only knew Robert and Richie’s mother Maggie. “That’s your other grandmother, your pops’ mom, you were named after her.”

“Uh” Alex hummed timidly. “Is she…”

“She’s been in heaven for a long time now…” Richie said nostalgic, then he smiled softly down at Alex. “She would’ve loved you…”

Alex looked at the picture confused. _‘Thanks heavens we’re making the family three!’_ Richie thought, he grabbed more pictures of the missing family members, and prepared to explain Alex.

“Look” Richie said before taking the notebook. “Grandpa Bob and your grandmother Jean got married and they had two kids, your pops and your aunt Sharon, your aunt Sharon got married to your uncle Adam and they had two kids, your cousins DJ and Shani and your pops married…?”

“You, dad” Alex said starting to laugh.

“Darn right he did! And we had the most perfect, the most wonderful, smartest baby ever Alexander Jean Hawkins” He narrated as he accommodated the pictures in order, when he finished, he booped Alex nose making him chuckle.

“uh… and what about your parents, dad?” Alex asked innocently.

Richie had to back up a little because of the shock, but he quickly recovered. “Well… you know that my mom is your grandma Maggie.” He said as he grabbed a picture of said woman and accommodated on its rightful place in the family three.

“Just grandma Maggie?” Alex asked curiously.

Richie swallowed hard, pushing away the truth. “Yes, baby, just your grandma Maggie… Go on, paste those so you can go take a bath.”

Alex nodded and worked on his homework, leaving Richie alone with his thoughts, the truth was that Richie did had a father, but they haven’t talk to each other in a really long time, they had a bit of difference of opinions, Richie was a gay metahuman who was married to a black guy, Richie’s father was a racist, metaphobic, homophobic jerk, so there really was no common ground for any sort of father-son relationship. Richie looked down at Alex and huffed a bitter laugh, he remembered his own words about how his grandmother would love to meet him, well he was pretty sure his grandfather would never share those feelings.

“What?” Alex asked, noticing that his father was staring.

“Nothing, ya done there?” Richie asked.

“Yep” Alex said closing his notebook with a thud.

“Okay, then, let’s go take a bath, c’mere” He said before picking the little boy from the wheel-chair.

“I can go upstairs on my own…” Alex mumbled once on Richie’s arms, lately he’s been carving independency.

“I know you can, but I wanna help you, may I?” Richie whispered and smiled triumphantly after he felt Alex nod against his shoulder. “Let’s go”

After Alex’s bath and a little argument about letting Alex dress up by himself, which Alex won, Richie carried him to his room to tuck him in.

“But I don’t wanna go to sleep!” Alex complained. “I wanna wait for pops!”

“Your pops ain’t coming back for a couple of hours baby, it’s already late”

“pleeaaseee!” Alex whined with the biggest puppy eyes he could manage, Richie had to look away to not give in.

“No, nope, it’s late, you gotta sleep.” Richie declared making Alex pout.

“But I’m not *Yawn* tired” Alex argument poorly.

Richie smirked “Yeah, so what can you do about that?”

Alex looked down thoughtfully before looking back at Richie with the same puppy eyes from earlier. “Dad, can you tell about the time you and uncle Tye stopped meta-trafficking?”

Richie’s smile widened, Alex had the tendency to ask for his parents, uncles, aunts and any other heroes adventures as bedtime stories.

“You’ve heard the story a billion times” Richie said teasingly, Alex just shrugged. “Okay, okay… well, first of all, we didn’t stop meta-trafficking, we managed to close a trafficking lab…”

“Still crash…”

“Well, it all started when your uncle Tim sent us a signal of this sketchy place that was inside our patrolling perimeter…” Richie proceeded to tell the story while his son watched him amazed, somewhere deep inside Richie’s mind there was a voice yelling to not tell this to Alex this, that this would only encourage him to go out to the real world and get himself killed, but the way Alex’s eyes lit when he heard about the bad guys paying for their crimes, shut that voice right away, he was a natural born hero.

“So crash…” Alex said after his dad finished the story, Richie smirked and laughed a little.

“come on you had your story, now’s time to go to sleep.”

“Noooo, one more story, about the time you went to space” Alex pleaded.

“Nuh-hu, you gotta rest baby, you got training tomorrow.” Richie reminded him.

“Okay…” Alex sighed in defeat. “Dad, I’m gonna train really hard, and control my powers, so I can train with Robin and Superboy and the rest of the meta-kids and help people like you do.”

“I’m sure you will baby” Richie said while covering the boy with the bed sheets.

“Dad?”

“Yes baby?”

“Do you think that I’ll ever be as good as you and pops?”

Richie stopped what he was doing and looked fondly at the fragile little african-american boy that seemed too small for the bed, he glanced at the crutches that were resting on the corner besides the bed before sighing and looking at Alex again, Alex was a fighter, he’s been fighting even before he was born, and he didn’t even know it, there was nothing in the universe that could bring that little boy down. Richie caressed the boy’s curly hair before cupping his face.

“No baby”

Alex’s face changed to a worried, hurt expression, he was about to question the words, but before he could his father leaned in and kissed his temple.

“You will be better.” Richie declared deadly serious.

Alex let out the breath he had been holding and smiled softly.

“But you gotta work for it” Richie warned. “It’s not gonna be easy”

“’Kay dad”

“Kay?”

“Okay *Yawn*”

“Let’s go to sleep…” Richie suggested as he traced the outline of Alex’s face with his thumb. “I’ll send pops to kiss you good night once he gets here.”

Alex nodded softly and blinked heavily, Richie smiled fondly and kissed Alex’s forehead.

“g’night baby, I love you.”

“Love ya too dad.” Alex mumbled sleepy, before closing his eyes.

Richie kissed his forehead one more time before exiting the room, leaving the door a crack open, just in case. He returned to the living room where his work awaited, he finished grading the papers, then he worked on some guns, technology and machines that members of the league were requesting, he had already updated all the technology the league used, from the contact lenses computers to the laser guns and power’s amplifiers, now he was working on a way of balancing earth’s, reach’s and apokaliptian technology to make vehicles, devices and weapons.

After a couple of hours Richie was almost asleep until he heard a small tap on the window, he glanced just to see the legendary Static hovering outside over his saucer wearing his signature smirk, long dreads tied back in a bun and a classy short boxed beard had taken place on his face over the years.

 _Tap tap tap_ Static continued. Richie smirked himself knowing where this was going, he got up lazily and stretched his back successfully managing to pop some bones, then he walked towards the window and opened just to be received by one of Dakota’s finest.

“Excuse me sir, I was patrolling around the neighborhood, you know keeping the world safe, doing superhero stuff” Static said, Richie couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow. “And I couldn’t help but wonder, what is a handsome man like yourself doing home alone on a night like this? You must need help desperately, you must be captive.” Static said with a tone that was a mixture between heroic and charming.

“Hhmm something like that, I’m waiting for my husband to come home” Richie said with a cocky smirk and with a playful sarcastic tone.

“That man must be an idiot to leave you alone” Static said as he approached more to the window.

Richie chuckled. “He is an idiot, but what can I do?”

“You should leave him” Static said now entering the house. “Run away with a real man.”

“Like you, Static?” Richie said jokily, as he let Static get closer to him and embrace him.

“Hmm smart and pretty, you’re the whole package aren’t ya?”  Static said as he nuzzled Richie’s neck.

“Oh you better bet on it, handsome.” Richie said over a chuckle, as he returned the hug. “I’m sorry Static, but no mater how idiotic my husband is, I love him, and I would never leave him, not even for a hunk like you.”

This time Static chuckled. “You do love him very much, don’t you?”

“With all my heart.” Richie said, he felt how Static’s embrace tightened and he heard him hum happily. “although he is a bit messy, and he eats on the couch and he forgets to do the dishes and he leaves the laundry all around the place…” He listed jokily, Static cut him before he could continue.

“Okay, okay, we were talking about how much you loved him here, let’s talk about that, or even better let’s talk about how to show him you love him, like letting the couch thing slide… or give him a nice back rub… or wearing those tight black boxers that squeeze your tights just right…”

Richie couldn’t help but to bark a loud happy laugh, he covered his mouth quickly before he could wake up Alex.

“What? I’m serious! I would never joke about those boxers!” Static said with a wide smile.

“Hahaha, c’mere” Richie said before breaking the hug and looking at Static in the face, he carefully reached to remove his mask and his googles, revealing Virgil’s face. _‘Yep, he does look like King Harrow alright’_ Richie thought laughing internally. He removed the bun freeing Virgil’s dreads before leaning in for a kiss, what started out as a simple kiss escalated to a more lovingly and tender make out session, Richie was able to feel a rush of electricity and passion running through his body but also the hint of fear and desperation that Virgil was showing unconsciously, after a couple of minutes the both broke apart for air, but Virgil didn’t let Richie get away, instead they joined foreheads and stood like that for a couple of seconds, finally Richie asked. “So, I’m guessing patrol went out wrong…”

Virgil groaned “Everybody wanted to fucking shoot everybody, all the team made it, no major injuries, but… I’m just happy to be home”

“I’m happy that you’re home too” Richie said as he ran a hand trough long black dreads, feeling the static electricity running through his fingers.

“And Richie…” Virgil said, Richie hummed in acknowledge. “I love you too, with every inch of my being” He declared before leaning in for a peck on the lips.

“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart…” Richie said with a hint of sarcasm, hopping that it will somehow send the blush on his cheeks away.

“So… is that a yes on the boxers…?” Virgil asked innocently making Richie chuckle.

“I left you hook up after this afternoon, didn’t I?” He asked playfully.

“Oh yhea, ya did” Virgil said before kissing Richie’s neck a couple of times. “We should send the kid away more often…”

“Speaking of him, he’s been waiting for his pops to go kiss him good night.” Richie said.

“Well we can’t disappoint the little guy now, can we?” Virgil said before kissing Richie one more time.

“pff funny, you said something like that this afternoon…” Richie said teasingly. Virgil frowned and slammed Richie’s shoulder playfully like he used to do when they argued as kids or teenagers, Richie could only laugh.

“Oi! So not funny! And so not true!” Virgil yelled trying to sound angry, but he couldn’t stop grinning.

“SShhhh Shut up! You’ll wake up Alex!” Richie hissed and returned the slam, pushing Virgil back a little. “do you know how hard it is to get him to sleep?!”

“I happen to know, I don’t know if you remember but last night I was the one waiting up for you…” Virgil whispered still grinning like an idiot.

Richie smirked and accommodated his glasses. “Go kiss your son good night, and try to not wake him up with your stink”

“Just ‘cause you asked so nicely” Virgil said before pecking Richie’s cheek one last time and went upstairs while stretching his arms.

The door was already a crack opened but that didn’t stopped Virgil to internally pray for the door to not make a sound, since forever Alex had been quite sensible to loud noises, and after some time training with superheroes and specially the baftam that sensibility had only gotten worse. When Virgil was finally inside, he couldn’t help but to let out a peaceful sigh, the little boy in front of him was sleeping blissfully, the light from outside the door was enough to see that his little head was leaning a bit to the side and both of his little hands were resting over the mattress.

 _‘Well aren’t ya worthy of a picture?’_ Virgil thought as he smiled fondly, he carefully approached to the bead and kneeled. _‘G’night my little boy’_ He thought, he leaned down and kissed the boy’s forehead. “I love you, son” He whispered as quietly as he could, he carefully got up and tiptoed to leave the room, he was about to get out successfully but just in the last minute, the door decided to creak.

“Dad?” Alex asked already sounding fully awake.

 _‘damn what does the bats do to get on someone’s nerves!? I should worry about that more’_ Virgil thought as he carefully turned around, Alex used his arms as support to sit up and he was facing towards the door, small purple sparks danced across his fingers like they every other time he was nervous or scared, God bless the proof-all fabric the league had been using since forever, other wise the house would have burn down a while ago now. “Close enough, I guess” Virgil said smirking making Alex smile.

“Hey pops…” Alex said letting himself fall back to the bed with a soft thud.

“Hey son… You shouldn’t have wake up”

“It was your fault, you’re always too noisy” Alex said grinning.

“What?!” Virgil yelped, but then remembered that he didn’t want his husband to find out that he had woken up their son… again, so instead he whispered. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“I’m not, you’re the one that hears every little sound!” Virgil said closing the door, so that Richie couldn’t hear them.

“I can’t see!” Alex complained in between giggles.

“Shhh we don’t want dad to scold us… Don’t worry we got this, remember what I taught ya?”

“Yeah”

“Ready on the count of three… one two three”

Both of them lifted up a hand a little and instantly both hands were covered with little dancing lightnings, Virgil’s electric blue ones seemed to be more… calm was the word, they seemed to be under control and stable in comparison to Alex’s, whose purple ones were sparking in a frenzy growing and shrinking every microsecond, by the look on the boy’s face it was obvious that he was concentrating hard to keep them under control.

“Not bad at all kid!” Virgil said proudly. “You’ve been practicing”

Alex looked at him and smiled, but lost concentration in the process, before he could even notice the lighting was growing, in less than a second it was the length of his arm. “Ahh! Pops!” Alex yelled scared, which did not help with the problem, luckily this was not the first time Virgil had to take care of these kind of situations, he quickly sat on the bed and started cup Alex’s hand in his owns, caging the lighting in the process, the closer the elder’s hands were to the hand of the boy, the less space the purple lightning had to move, he stopped a few inches away of the little dark-skinned hand, letting the small sparks roam freely in between.

“It’s okay, It’s okay, we got it…” Virgil soothed. “We got it…”

Alex relaxed and used his free arm as a support to sit and look better at the sparks, Virgil noticed and thought that the position might be tiering to the young boy, as carefully as he could he managed to scoot Alex over with his knee, so that there was more space on the bed, then without moving his hands from position, Virgil managed to lay down next to his son. “Theeeere we go”

Alex let himself lay in the bed too, they laid their side by side quietly, Virgil’s hands still hoovering around Alex’s over their bodies, neon purple lightning mixing with cerulean blue, until Virgil broke the silence “Beautiful isn’t it?” he said referring to the lightning.

“yhea…” Alex whispered. “I will control it… One day…”

“I know you will son…” Virgil said proudly. “You should be asleep, love.”

“I don’t *yawn* wanna” Alex complained.

“C’mon, I can only go to sleep when you go to sleep!” Virgil practically whined.

“Then *yawn* don’t go*yawn* stay here…” Alex said as he leaned his head in Virgil’s shoulder.

“And leave me alone?” Another voice said all of the sudden.

The lightning that they were both holding died, they turned around to see Richie leaning in the door frame with crossed arms and a crocked eyebrow. Virgil smiled sheepishly and sank in the bed.

“Ya can stay *yawn* too dad” Alex said sleepy.

“MMnn I don’t think there’s enough space baby” Richie said coming closer in the bed, once there he sat on the edge and cupped Virgil’s and Alex’s faces with each hand, Alex just blinked heavily while Virgil hummed happily and leaned in to the touch. “How about, if we have our sleepover in our room V?”

“Mmmnnn… that sounds nice… what ya think Al?”

“MMnnn… ‘kay… but pops…”

“Yhea son?”

“First take a shower… you smell…”  

Virgil and Richie laughed out loud

“hahaha… yhea so I’ve been told.” Virgil laughed, as he started to get up from the bed.

“C’mere baby” Richie soothed as he picked Alex up.

“Mmmnn… I can *Yawn* g’there myself…” Alex complained.

“Kid! Ya can’t even keep your eyes open!” Virgil said mockingly as he ruffled the boy’s hair, making Alex groan sleepingly, the connection between the two electrokinethics created a shocking sound that reminded Richie of when he was working with wires.

“Go shower V! Ya’re stinking the whole house already!” Richie mocked accommodating Alex in his arms.

“Fine, fine…. Gee can’t a guy get a break?” Virgil complained sarcastically as he left the room, making Richie chuckle.

“C’mon baby…” Richie mumbled as he left the room too but went on a different direction.

Richie’s and Virgil’s room was a little bit bigger than Alex’s it had a big king size bed that was decorated by a plain blue cover and some white pillows. Richie tucked Alex in before laying down himself.

“There we go…”

“Mmmnnn thanx dad…” Alex mumbled as he rubbed his left eye sleepily.

“Anything for ya baby” Richie said smiling fondly, Alex smiled tiredly.

“Heads up!” Virgil warned before jumping on the bed landing on his back and making Alex and Richie hop a little.

“Virgil!” Richie yelped as Alex laughed hysterically.

“What?” Virgil asked mockingly as he stretched on the bed, Richie just raised an eyebrow, the tension was broken after Alex let out a loud yawn.

“Aawww… look Rich, little baby is sleepy…” Virgil said half mockingly half fondly, Alex groaned and hit Virgil’s shoulder playfully, before leaning his head in mentioned shoulder. Both of the parents giggled.

Suddenly out of nowhere “BANG!” The noise that came outside the main window was enough to make the three trained matehumans startle, Virgil and Richie didn’t waste any time in getting up and looking outside the window, while the young boy was forced to lay there while his lightning startled in his hands.

“What?! What is it?! Danger?!” Alex asked panicked, but his parents just relaxed.

“Ssshhh don’t worry, a truck just backfired.” Richie soothed his son as he laid next to him.

“A moving truck actually…” Virgil added still looking at the window.

“Oohh… Are we having new neighbors?” Alex asked curiously.

“Ohh… some neighbors we are having… not to say things, but that moving guy looked like Dick.” Virgil commented as he returned to bed.

“Virgi…! Ohhh… Oohh” Richie said as he understood what his husband meant. “Probably some league member got reassigned, you know to keep identities secret and all.” Richie said before asking Alex. “That’s why?”

“We never use our powers without our mask” Alex said mechanically, after the whole metatraffickin crisis, one would think that society would feel at least pity for the metahumans, but they didn’t, instead the metaphobia was a serious problem, children born looking as mutants were abandoned, metas were attacked on the streets, there were no laws against metatrafficking or meta-hunting, police refused to help metas and most governments didn’t want the justice league’s help, right now the only safe place for metas was Dr. Dorado’s Youth Center/Orphanage/Shelter/Dinner/Training center/Hospital/The place was a mess but it was trying hard to be what everyone needed at the moment. Alex was just a kid, he wasn’t comppleatly aware of the whole issue, but still it was important for him to get used to never let anyone to know that he was a meta. “yhea I know dad, so, who’s gonna move in then?” Alex asked.

“We can find out tomorrow, now” Virgil said before giving Alex a big kiss in his forehead making him frown. “Sleep, ‘kay?”

“’kay…” Alex said.

“Love ya son” Virgil said lovingly before kissing his head again this time more tenderly and lovingly.

“Love ya pops, love ya dad” Alex said before yawing and closing his eyes.

Richie smiled and said. “You already know I love you baby” then he looked at Virgil and leaned in for a kiss that was gratefully returned. “I love you…” Richie said after the kiss.

“I adore you…” Virgil responded.

“Eeeww…” The five-year-old mumbled not even bothering to open his eyes, just because he was five and let’s face it his parents were too cheesy. Virgil and Richie giggled.

“Kid like you are I was, how I am you will be…” Virgil said not even looking at Alex, instead he looked fondly at Richie’s eyes, he kissed him one last time, he removed his glassed and left them in the nightstand. “G’night love…” Virgil mumbled with his eyes already closed.

Richie took a moment to “look” at his boys, the best he could without his glasses and he couldn’t help but to smile fondly, his father was crazy if he believed that this is not a decent life, this was the most amazing thing that could have ever happen to him.


End file.
